Friday, May 3, 7:25 a.m. – Thursday was a nice positive day for our markets. New crop corn closed up 6 3/4, new crop soybeans closed up 22 3/4, new crop winter wheat closed up 5 and new crop spring wheat closed up 7. In the overnight trade all of our markets remain on the positive side. Oil closed down $0.05 yesterday at $78.95 per barrel. It is stronger in trading this morning with it now valued at $79.15 per barrel. Our dollar started out yesterday morning at $0.729 US and has since then trended mostly higher. This morning it is currently valued at $0.732 US. It was great to see all of our markets positive yesterday. They were led by soybeans and this market traded higher for a few reasons. Delays in harvesting the last bit of soybeans in Southern Brazil due to excessive rain events have also negatively affected the harvest in Northern Argentina. Rain events this week in the US are most definitely slowing down their planting progress for this year’s crop. Finally rumours out of Argentina of another port workers strike also fueled the market. This helped soybean meal to rise to a new 3 month high as the market traded with fears that shipments would be delayed out of Argentina. Reports from the Ukraine Agriculture Ministry are predicting that grain exports will fall over 20% for this coming marketing year. Wheat exports are expected to decrease to 14 million tonnes from 18 million tonnes and corn exports are expected to fall by 6 million tonnes down to 21 million tonnes. Decreases are due to decreased acres being farmed and other war related adversities plus some weather concerns this spring. I must admit however that with how strong their exports have been over the last couple of years it is hard to imagine that they will decrease going forward. It has just seemed that whatever has occurred during their war with Russia agricultural production and exports have been maintained. Prices have remained positive this morning as the supply side is under some pressure with various weather concerns around the world. For months we have been saying that the strong supply side of the market has been dominating and pulling down prices. This current rally really shows how the markets like to go up even if the damage to the supply side is far from locked in at this time. With this in mind it brings me to my Friday thought below which truly takes in most farmers one way or another. Friday’s thought: A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty!
