Markets Start The Week Firmer

Corn started the week with small gains of 2-3 cents. Corn was firmer in the overnight session, too. Gordy said this morning in the 8:30 market report that there was an agreement between a number of oil exporting countries that they would not increase production. Crude oil and world stock markets moved higher on that news, which supported corn and beans. Export Loadings had a good number at 900,323 MT. In addition the USDA announced a daily corn sale of 100,000 MT of corn sold to Columbia. Remember, Columbia bought another boatload of corn that was announced last week. This tells me our corn must be priced competitively on the world market as we sure have seen export sales pick up.

Beans did OK today, too, with gains of 2-4 cents. Beans were 5-6 cents higher in the overnight session so they backed off a little going into the close. Export loadings for beans were up 56 percent from the same week in 2015 at 1.53 MMT. It was impressive that beans were able to post gains with the Dollar Index higher and of course the South American harvest hitting the world market. Beans are at the highest level we have seen this month. It just feels like beans are going to have a tough time rallying higher given the world supplies. Unless of course we get a weather event somewhere in the world.