Maybe There is Hope for Corn and Beans?

Corn prices showed signs of life last week even with a slightly bearish USDA Report on Thursday. The average trade guess for the USDA was bearish but maybe is was not as bearish as the market actually expected? For the week December corn gained around 13 cents a bushel. The Commitment of Traders Report showed that the funds or managed money accounts added 17,028 contracts to their short positions. As of last Tuesday the funds were short 136,399 contracts.

Bean prices had a good week too with the new crop November gaining 41 cents a bushel. There were reports that China was going to exempt beans and pork from tariff import taxes. Plus China bought 600,000 MT of beans from the U.S. getting ready for trade talks next month. In addition the U.S. soybean crop is well behind normal development which was also supportive. The NOPA August crush report will be released today and traders expect it to be at 162 million bushels. That would be up 2 percent from August of 2018.