Corn and soybeans drop back into the red | February 16, 2024

Good afternoon. More of the USDA numbers came out today. The reports showed projections for large crops and larger ending stocks. That was one of the factors that pressured corn and wheat prices today to new contract lows. Overall, the weather looks favorable for South America and trade volume was down ahead of the three-day weekend.  

On the Ag Outlook numbers, I think that corn acres will not drop as much as these early snapshot projections. It will take an ideal growing season to hit these lofty yield projections. In the last few years, the Outlook Form has consistently overestimated yields and overstated ending stocks. 

This is the type of report that comes in at major lows in the grain markets. 

At the close today corn futures were 1¢ lower to unchanged. Soybean futures closed 10¢ higher. Wheat futures closed 3 to 8¢ lower. For the week nearby corn closed down 13¢, nearby soybeans down 11¢, and wheat was 29 to 37¢ per bushel lower. 

The US markets are closed on Monday for the Presidents Day Holiday. The Asian markets are all open starting Monday after being closed for the week for the New Year holiday week. The US markets start trading on Monday night with normal hours Tuesday through Friday. 

In the outside markets, the US dollar is moving lower, the US stock market is higher and energy prices have turned positive late in the day.  

In the livestock markets on Friday. April hogs closed 22¢ higher at $85.22, April cattle closed $1.95 higher at $187.55 and March Feeder cattle closed $3.92 higher at $251.02.

9:30 a.m.: Corn and soybeans inch higher

Good morning. The corn and soybean markets are higher with wheat again lower in Friday trade ahead of the three-day weekend. 

This week the annual USDA Ag Outlook conference came out with (as expected) large yield and ending stocks projections. They cut corn acres by 3.6 million to 91 million acres and used a yield of 181 bushels per acre. Even with expanded usage projections ending stocks swell to 2.532 billion bushels. For soybeans acreage increased by 3.9 million acres to 87.5 million acres, with a whopping yield of 52 bushels per acre ending stocks increase to 435 million bushels. For wheat the bottom line is that even with 2.6 million acres less projected, wheat ending stocks increase to 1.909 billion bushels.

I will have my analysis of these numbers in the afternoon update. 

At this hour, corn futures are 1¢ higher, soybean futures are 9¢ higher, and winter wheat futures are 3 to 7¢ lower. Spring wheat is 2¢ lower. 

In the outside markets the US dollar is up 0.04 points, the S&P is down 5 points, the Dow is down 75 points, and energy prices are slightly higher.

In the livestock markets today, April hogs are down 37¢, April cattle are up $1.72, and March Feeder cattle are up $3.35.

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About the Author: Al Kluis has been a commodity advisor and broker since 1976. Kluis is an introducing broker with Wedbush Futures and writes a column, Your Profit, which appears in every issue of Successful Farming magazine. Kluis has published two books on commodities trading and is commonly quoted in major publications including the Wall Street Journal. He is also a featured speaker at commodity conferences nationwide. Kluis is a frequent market analyst for the Linder Farm Radio News Network. A Minnesota farm boy, Kluis was awarded his degree in ag economics from the University of Minnesota in 1974, after which he was executive director of the Minnesota Soybean Association before entering the markets full-time. His family still farms in southwest Minnesota, and Kluis enjoys helping with fieldwork when the markets allow.