Markets Quiet Friday

It was another quiet day in the corn market Friday as corn closed about unchanged. It still seems like neither the bulls or the bears can get the upper hand. In the weekly Export Sales report, corn had one of the better numbers of the marketing year at 41.4 million bushels. Total corn export sales for this year are at 1.011 billion bushels, while last year at this date corn export sales were at 1.3418 billion bushels. So, we are behind last year's pace by 330 million bushels. Of course, the bears point this out as often as possible. However, there is one major difference between this year and last year. Last year corn stocks were much tighter and end users locked in supplies early, fearing prices might go higher. This year everyone knows we have plenty of corn so there is no need to lock it in early. This year they are buying "hand to mouth."

Once again it was a very similar story in beans. Beans had a very narrow range of about 5 cents and closed with losses of 1-2 cents. Even though beans from South America are hitting the world market, we are still seeing good export demand from the United States. Export sales for beans were at 20.8 million bushels, which was called supportive but it did not give us a bounce in prices. The Dollar Index was a little lower, which was supportive but not enough to really get traders' attention. I am keeping an eye out for the numbers from the USDA Outlook Forum. One news report I read said the numbers were going to be released yesterday, this morning I read it will be next week. Whenever they are released I am sure they will be bearish as they always are. The question is how bearish?