Friday, April 26, 7:10 a.m. – Thursday was a positive day for our markets. New crop corn closed up 3 1/2, new crop soybeans closed up 1, new crop winter wheat closed up 7 1/2 and new crop spring wheat closed up 11 1/2. In the overnight trade all of our markets are back on the negative side. Oil closed up $0.76 yesterday at $83.57 per barrel. It is stronger again this morning with it now valued at $84.04 per barrel. Our dollar had a low yesterday morning before noon of $0.729 US and a high in the overnight trading of $0.733 US. It has eased back a bit from the high this morning with it currently valued at $0.732 US. For the 6th consecutive day wheat prices led our markets higher. Analysts are flipping back and forth on why the markets are going higher with the bottom line being that the wheat markets have been going higher. They have increased about $15 per tonne for the week. It has been a long time since we could say that about the wheat market so let’s just enjoy this when we can. Further to this we would like to congratulate our customers that are taking advantage of this rally to book some old and new crop wheat. It was really nice to see some target orders getting filled. The corn market was supported yesterday by US Weekly Corn Sales exceeding expectations with shipments of 1.7 million tonnes being a season high. Sales and shipments this year are about 20% ahead of last year out of the US. With the current pace they will meet the USDA’s projections for the year. On the negative side for corn weekly ethanol production in the US declined by 3% down to 964 thousand barrels per day. Over the last 3 weeks ethanol production has declined by 11% in the US. This has resulted in ethanol stocks decreasing however the decline last week was only 1.3% not near the production decline. Hopefully the demand side will pick up with the summer increased driving season just around the corner. Soybean oil prices jumped up yesterday after starting the day in the negative. Rumours that it will be featured in a new Sustainable Aviation Fuel report due out next week in the US brought some strength to the marketplace. This has the potential of being a very large demand source going forward. Like most things time will tell the story. Friday’s thought: If you get into a discussion today remember that what can be asserted without evidence can be denied without evidence!
