Market Report: Corn and Beans Close Well Off the Lows Wednesday

All the agricultural commodities were under pressure Thursday when traders saw the minutes from the last Fed meeting. The minutes said that the Federal Reserve Committee was not ruling out an interest rate hike of a quarter percent in June. Corn was down hard but corn rallied back 6 cents off the lows to close down only 7-9 cents. We did drop through the 200-day moving average but closed back above it. Export sales saw a huge number at 79 million bushels, just over 2 MMT. About a quarter of the sales were for new crop.

It was the same story in beans only more dramatic. Beans closed down only 3-5 cents. That was about 20 cents off the lows! The bears had everything going for them and they could not make the big losses hold. In addition to concerns about an interest rate hike, the dollar index was higher and energy markets were lower. The bean market seems to be concerned about production losses in South America we continue to see big export demand. Export sales came in at 648,500 MTT.