Markets Weaker Thursday

After two up days in a row, corn gave back some of the gains Thursday, posting losses of 1-3 cents. There was not a lot of new news for traders to work with. In the weekly Energy Information Report, we saw ethanol production up 6,000 barrels per day to 975,000 barrels per day, but ethanol stocks were up 1.1 percent. Ethanol stocks are at an all-time record. The USDA did announce a daily sale of 2 million bushels of corn was sold to Costa Rica. That was quite unusual and I don't remember a corn sale to Costa Rica. That tells me our corn must be competitively priced on the world market.

It was a similar story in beans, as we saw losses of 2-3 cents. The big cloud over the bean market is the South American harvest estimated to be at 20 percent complete in Brazil. The world's second bean harvest is now hitting the market. However, while our bean exports do slow down at this time we still see some export business for U.S. beans. I did read Thursday there were 160 ships in South American ports waiting to be loaded! That does not happen in U.S. ports. That has to add to the overall cost of doing business with South America. Remember the USDA Outlook Forum will release their baseline projections today. Typically these are very bearish so brace yourself!