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Despite a brutal stretch of hot and dry conditions, Corn prices have continued to struggle, tied in with ever changing forecasts looking at favorable conditions ahead. In total, the trend is clearly down with the cooler forecast for the corn belt and a potential for trade in the Black Sea to resume. Energy prices have also fallen pulling other commodities with it as Russia re-opened the Nord Stream pipeline into Europe (at less than 50% capacity). While prices have retreated to pre-Russia invasion of Ukraine, the potential for a sub trend line corn crop in the US remains. Basis is ...

Lumber has long been known as a quite illiquid futures market. We talked about it on the RCM blog here, on the Hedged Edge podcast here, and Derivative podcast here. But changes are afoot which may solve the main issues that lead to the illiquid nature of lumber futures, with the CME Group getting ready to launch a new lumber futures and options contract that will be smaller and have more delivery options, which we believe will allow for more effective risk management. The CME said it plans to launch the new contract early in August. The current contract that ...

Corn had a volatile week suffering losses to drop back to levels it saw at the start of last week. The USDA report on Tuesday this week wiped out the gains from last week after a bearish report. Ending stocks came in higher than expectations, not by much, but enough to be bearish. The recession fears affect every market and corn is no different as ending stocks will grow as less ethanol is produced and other uses will lower. The weather is the bullish factor in the market right now with hot and dry conditions expected across much of the ...

Corn bounced back to end the week after a brutal start. Corn was pressured to start the week with rain this week across large areas and recession fears that would lower demand for fuel and ethanol as energy prices started the week off poorly. Funds over the past couple weeks were unloading some positions as well but that looks to have slowed to end the week with some getting back in.  The bounce back to end the week looks to be partly driven by hot and dry weather expecting to get back to the western corn belt next week and ...

Corn reacted negatively to the Stocks and Acreage report this week despite there not being any surprises and the numbers coming out close to pre-report estimates. Planted acres came in at 89.921 million acres (89.861 million estimate) and June 1 stocks were 4.346 billion bushels (4.343 billion estimate). The bearish news is improving weather after the 4th of July with rains expected across most of the corn belt. The concern over the wet spring causing prevent plant acres in ND and MN does not appear to have come to fruition with high prices motivating farmers to get the crop in ...