Market Report: Corn and Beans Slightly Higher

Corn closed about 2 cents higher today. Technical indicators were oversold, and that may have promoted the funds to buy about 5,000 contracts. Thoughts of delayed corn planting were also supportive. Heavy rains were moving through the eastern corn belt, plus the southern corn belt is wet, too. For many months new crop December corn has been hovering around $4.15 a bushel. Even with the slow planting pace it still looks like corn may be moving to a new pivot of $4 a bushel.

Soybeans closed well off session highs but were still up 3-4 cents. The NOPA crush was friendly at 162.822 million bushels of beans crushed in March. That is a record for March and the fourth-highest of any month on record. The bears always say there is no demand, but then how do you explain the NOPA crush number? The negative news is that even when soybeans are higher for the day they lose much of it by the close.