Markets Thursday Maybe Hope?

Corn did pretty well Thursday, posting gains of 4-5 cents. Those gains came in spite of the Dollar Index being a bit higher. Export sales were supportive at 43 million bushels. Currently we are only 15 percent behind last year's pace. It seems like every year the bears fret about poor export sales during harvest. They never seem to get the seasonal pattern that corn export sales start to pick up later in December and really pick up into January. That pattern seems to be holding again this year.

Beans managed to post small gains of 1-2 cents Thursday in a fairly quiet day. Traders are just beginning to notice the weather in South America might be an issue, too dry in northern Brazil and too wet in the south. This could be significant as traders and the USDA have a record yield dialed in this year. Export sales came in at 1.454,500 MT, which was supportive. In addition, the USDA announced a bean sale of 120,000 MT sold to an unknown destination for this crop year. Good demand for beans continues to provide support. With a carryover in the U.S. of 465 million bushels, it is going to take more than good demand to really get a rally going. It is going to take weather concerns in South America.