Grains are higher at midday:

Corn + 12 ¼ cents/bu (May @ 5.92 1/4)

Soybeans + 19 ½ cents/bu (May @ 14.09) ßPushed back past $14. Great technically.

Chi Wheat + 19 ¼ cents/bu (May @ 6.49)

Cdn $ +0.00125 (79.915 cents)

WTI Crude Oil +2.73/barrel (62.91)

Yesterday was turn-around Tuesday… should we call today going-up Wednesday? Grains are pushing higher today again with no major stories leading the charge.

The acreage battle between soybeans and corn remains in headlock.

The EIA report was released this morning and showed that commercial crude oil stocks decreased 5.9 million barrels to 492.4 million barrels. Ethanol stocks also decreased 100,000 barrels to 20.5 million barrels. Ethanol production decreased 34 thousand barrels per day to 941 thousand barrels a day. Ethanol production utilized an estimated 92.2 million bushels of corn last week, down from 95.6 million the previous week, but up from 56.9 million in the shutdown a year ago. Corn usage to date for ethanol production totals an estimated 2.979 billion bushels, down 202 million or 6.3% from the previous year's pace, and down 41 million bushels from the longer-term seasonal pace needed to hit USDA's target.

Tomorrow we will see the March NOPA report, as well as the export sales report for the prior week. The NOPA report has potentials to show a record March crop, so not realizing this may lead to volatile drops. The export sales report is not expected to be extraordinary. Sales have been lower since the exports in Brazil ramped up which is not uncommon for this time of year.