Markets Closed Today for Martin Luther King Jr. Day

The markets are closed today in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Markets will open this evening for the overnight session. Maybe it is a good thing the grains and most of the financial markets are closed given what happened in the stock markets last week. I just had a thought that I should have asked Gordy or Marv last week. Our stock market is closed but I suspect that the stock market in China will be trading today. Remember the China stock market melted down and that spread to our stock market. Many times when you have a long weekend you get a change in the direction of the grains. I am not sure we can hope for that this time though.

Friday corn did have a pretty good day, posting gains of around a nickel. For the week, corn was up about 6 cents. In the weekly CFTC report, the funds increased their short positions by 24,843 contracts and are now net short 186,843 contracts. The Farm Service Agency final report for 2015 showed 2.367 million acres were claimed as prevented plant.

Beans struggled a bit on Friday, closing 3-4 cents lower. The NOPA Crush report showed 157.71 million beans were crushed in December, which was at the average trade guess. The CFTC report showed the funds holding a net short position of 53,040 contracts. This was actually a reduction of 26,507 contracts. The Farm Service Agency report showed farmers took prevented plant on 2.232 million acres. The frustrating part of the prevented plant acres is that the USDA never seems to take those into account in their monthly Supply Demand reports! It is likely that when the grains open tonight the direction will be determined by the financial markets in China and here.