Markets Thursday: Down Again

It was the third day in a row corn closed lower, posting losses of 3-4 cents. Export sales were very good at 42 million bushels, but it did not seem to matter. Traders were focused on the USDA Outlook Forum numbers projecting corn acres this year will increase 2 million acres to 90 million acres. If you use the USDA's "trend line yield" we would see carryover increase to well over 2 billion bushels. That is all the traders seemed to focus on. Thursday we took out the February lows and we are only 5-6 cents away from the January lows.

Beans, too, closed lower for the third day in a row even though acres are projected to be lower this year. The USDA Outlook Forum projects bean acres this year will be down 200,000 acres to 82.5 million acres. Using "trend line yields" U.S. carryover would be over 500 million bushels and, of course, that is all traders focuses on. Never mind many times before bean carryover has been projected to be over 500 million acres at this time of year and it has never been that high. Export sales were at 12.1 million bushels, which was within the range of trade expectations.