Markets Weaker Again Friday

It was another day when you could say it could have been worse as corn closed 1-1 1/2 cents lower. The tough part is small losses add up with March corn down about 11 cents last week. There were a number of negative factors corn had to deal with last week. There is concern about macro-economic issues, the weather is pretty good right now in most of South America, or at least traders think it is and the USDA Outlook Forum painted a pretty bearish picture with 2 million more corn acres this year. The only bright side I could see was maybe export demand for corn is picking up. There were a number of daily export sales announcements last week from the USDA.

It was not much different for beans Friday, or last week, for that matter. Beans closed about 4 cents lower Friday and March lost 23 cents for the week. The March 9 Supply Demand Report will remind traders of ample U.S. and world supplies. The next real opportunity we have for some friendly numbers comes at the end of March with the USDA Prospective Plantings Report. At the same time we will also get the Quarterly Grain Stocks Report. Even if we were to get some friendly numbers from these reports it is difficult to see a big bean rally. We just have a lot of beans available to the world market.