Market Report: Corn and Beans Recover Some of Monday’s Losses

Corn close about 2 cents higher today. Not much of a contrary Tuesday performance after Monday's huge drop. In the Crop Progress report we saw a slight increase in the good to excellent ratings from 69 percent to 70 percent of the corn crop rated good to excellent. I read that the basis at terminals was slightly firmer but weaker at the river terminals. A couple of elevators I watch narrowed the basis slightly, indicating farmers are reluctant sellers after the big drop in corn prices. There was an export sales announcement of 120,000 MT of sorghum sold to China.

Beans closed 11-14 cents higher today. That represents beans recovering about one-third of Monday's losses. There was likely a little short covering as traders maybe thought Monday's losses were a little over done. I will give the bears the argument that we have good weather and a nonthreatening forecast. The billion-dollar question? How big are the drowned out spots in the eastern corn belt, and how much of the crop that is there can recover? We may not know for a while.