Markets Close Week on a Positive Note

After losses of about 4 cents Thursday and closing below a number of technical indicators, corn came back Friday, posting gains of about 6 cents. I was sure prepared to see a lot of follow-through weakness Friday, but buyers surfaced in a big way. Crude oil was higher, along with big gains in the Dow so that likely helped corn. The Dollar Index was up over a full point and corn still rallied! Export sales were delayed a day because of the blizzard that shut down the USDA early in the week and that probably helped corn. Export sales were at 855,372 MT, up 17 percent from the four-week average. Will corn continue to rally? I hope so as I have unpriced corn in the bin yet. I think a lot of other farmers are in the same situation. I should mention corn gained about 2 cents on the week. That is the third-highest weekly close!

It was a similar pattern in beans as beans closed about 14 cents lower Thursday and back up about 14 cents Friday. Beans did gain about 6 cents on the week. Export sales were supportive, coming in at 647,828 MT. Monday morning we get the monthly crush and the trade guess is 167.7 million bushels of beans were crushed in December. I have mentioned many times that there were some weather issues in South America and the market did not seem to be concerned. Granted they are still going to have a very good crop but just maybe not quite as big. Anyway, I read a number of places that beans were higher Friday because of a hot dry forecast in Argentina. Maybe the market is starting to care?