Market Report: Corn and Beans Post Big Gains

Corn closed up 6-7 cents a bushel. It has been a long time since corn and soybeans had a day like this. In the Crop Progress Report, the corn rated good to excellent actually dropped to 73 percent while traders expected an increase. The USDA reported a sale of 100,000 MT of corn to an unknown destination. That came on top of another sale yesterday to Japan. Also supportive was Tropical Storm Bill off the coast of Texas. It is supposed to track all the way to Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. Another 3-5 inches of rain would not be good for already saturated soils.

It was quite a day in beans, too, as they closed up 20-24 cents a bushel. There was likely some short covering that triggered buy stops. There are about 11 million acres of beans to plant yet and maybe the market is starting to pay attention to the date and how wet it is down South. Like corn traders were expecting crop conditions in beans to improve. Instead the good to excellent dropped by 2 percent to 67 percent. The key for both corn and beans will be if we can get follow through Wednesday,