Market Report: Corn Mixed, Beans Higher

Corn closed today 1 cent lower to 2 cents higher. It was a quiet day after the USDA Report on Tuesday. The Energy Information Administration report showed that ethanol stocks actually dropped from the previous week by 500,000 barrels and ethanol production increased 2.8 percent to 912,000 barrels per day. I read in the Brugler Marketing newsletter that ethanol plant margins are estimated at 35 cents a bushel. The Dollar Index was quite a bit lower, and that supported all the grain markets.

Soybeans recovered some of Tuesday's big losses by closing 4-8 cents higher. Traders may have done some short covering after the big drop Tuesday. Thinking about the USDA projected carryover projections, it is hard to get very encouraged about prices. Even though the carryout this year came in below trade estimated at 350 million bushels, we are not going to run out of beans even with good demand. The really bearish number was the carryover for next year at 500 million bushels. That is a big number. We have to hope for bad weather this growing season in another part of the country or that the USDA's acres planted report the end of June will show less acres of beans this year than anticipated.