Markets Active Monday

Normally the grain markets are pretty quiet the week of Thanksgiving, but not this year. Corn was under pressure during the overnight session and opened lower Monday morning. Corn was under pressure from a higher Dollar Index and spill-over from a sharply lower bean market. By the close, corn was 7 cents off the lows of the day and posted a gain of 4 cents. December corn is testing the highs set back on November 10 just before the November USDA Supply Demand Report. Export Loadings were up 30 percent from the previous week at 494,698 MT but we still lag last pace by 23 percent.

Beans saw a wild day Monday posting gains of 5-6 cents after trading 10-12 cents lower. Beans traded at the lowest level since March 2009 before roaring back. Beans were under pressure mainly because of the elections in Argentina. The new president Maurico Macri ran on making changes to Argentina's export tax. Currently there is a 35 percent export tax on beans. On top of that there is a 30 percent inflation rate. Farmers in Argentina have a lot of beans in storage that they do not want to sell unless they need cash to pay expenses.  Also, their beans are uncompetitive on the world market because of the export tax. Traders assumed that the export tax would be removed because of the elections and a lot of beans would hit the world market. Later in the day we found out the export tax would go from 35 percent to 30 percent in 2016! In the grain markets traders always seem to assume the worst until proven otherwise!