Closing Comments
Lynn Miller
January 27th, 2016
Corn:
Corn was on the defensive today with the nearby’s managing to close unchanged while the deferred months lost ground. Ethanol production was down for the 2nd week in a row. Now at 961,000 barrels/day (down 22,000 from last week) Stocks; however, were down for the first time in a while.
In South Africa, the Crop Estimated Committee has reduced the corn crop to 7.44 MMT due to the historical drought. This will be their smallest crop since 2007, with plantings down 25%.
Technically, all three indicators continue to be bullish the March futures. Support appears to have held at $3.69 today; this is day 2 of just holding on at the close. My next sales targets above $3.70 remain at $3.82 followed by $3.95 and $4.10 if we can find momentum.
Soybeans:
Buy stops triggered at approximately 11:30 this morning caused the market to spike. Nearly 6,000 contracts were bought during that 10 minutes of which 4,000 can be credited to the funds. A stronger crude market has helped soyoil and therefore helped crush margins the past 7 sessions.
Some concerns of dryness in Argentina are starting to surface. World Weather, Inc is reporting that central and southern Argentina is and will continue to experience widespread crop stress with no moisture relief until the end of next week. Major growing areas in Brazil Rio Grande De Sol and Southern Parana received some rains while other area remain stressed. Early harvest results out of Mato Grasso are mixed with northern areas seeing 9-27 bu/ac and southern areas seeing good yields of 55 bu/acre. Remember though, the planting window here was delayed and spread out over a month. We have a long ways to go to know if this crop is really cut short or not.
Technically, all three indicators are once again bullish the March futures. We managed a close of the moving average, and the extremely vulnerable stochastics are once again in buy mode. Nearby support may have been moved up with today’s price action, here’s hoping $8.82 will hold. My selling targets are $8.82, $8.90, $9.00 then $9.12 if you really want to reach.
Wheat:
Funds took back all of yesterday’s gains and then some today and on talk that Russia maybe dropping the export tax on wheat (didn’t we just talk about them increasing this tax yesterday?)
No matter what the charts look like today – wheat still has a friend in Oprah Winfrey. According to a USA Today article Oprah is telling the world “she loves bread, and lost 26 pounds eating bread every single day!” This is important to our industry, no matter what your feelings are about Oprah. She has the influence to set trends (and proved it with the ‘mad cow disease’ scare a few years back). Oprah is telling the world that bread (wheat/carbohydrates) do not cause weight gain.
Technically, two of three indicators are again bearish the Minneapolis March futures. We closed below the moving average and the stochastics have issued a sell signal. Support has moved upward to $4.98 and held today. The close tonight was less than ideal, moving nearby support back down to $4.92. My price targets have not changed and remain $5.00, 5.05, $5.10, $5.20, $5.28 and $5.39.
