Corn and Beans Mark Time Last Week

With Thanksgiving last week the grain markets were closed Thursday and there was a short session Friday. Many times during a holiday week there is very little action. However, we did have some excitement Wednesday when corn was around 6 cents higher. Friday we gave back a couple cents but at least for the week corn was about unchanged. The December options expired Friday so we saw some of the normal game playing going on. The open interest Friday in the December corn was still around 365,000 contracts. First notice day is Thursday so there is still a lot of position squaring that needs to occur in the next few days.

Beans followed the same pattern as corn last week We saw gains of 8 to 10 cents on Wednesday and Friday beans gave back about 4 cents a bushel. Like corn beans were about unchanged for the week. Traders are paying attention to the weather in Argentina where it had been dryer than normal. Friday the forecast was for a little more moisture and that took beans lower. Beans are being supported by very good demand both domestically and from exports. I have been hearing more reports of this years bean crop is a little lower than normal in protein and oil content. You would think that would result in even more demand for beans?