Grains are mixed to head into the weekend:

Corn -4 1/2 cents/bu (May @ 5.85 1/2)

Soybeans + 15 cents/bu (May6 @ 14.33 1/4)

Chi Wheat – 1 1/4 cents/bu (May @ 6.52 1/2)

Cdn $ +0.00235 (80.00 cents) ß Cracked again today! Good technically.

WTI Crude Oil -0.33/barrel (63.13)

Grains eased into the weekend risk-off to close after a busy week. Over past 5 days, the futures markets gained 14 3/4 cents on December 2021 corn, 9 cents on November 2021 soybeans and 15 1/4 cents on July 2021 wheat. If you still have some new crop to market, we strongly recommend determining your cost of production, and marketing, setting up GPO’s, or planning to sell some at a level that is profitable to you. At these levels, it is rational to want to see how high the market may go, but you should also consider taking some risk off of the table and contracting a portion of your grain in case the prices go backwards.

Weather was the market’s focus today… because there is nothing else in the news to talk about! Most of the swings in prices today can be attributed to money flow, chart signals and the approaching weekend.

Cool temperatures are the talk of the town today, as forecasts shows that colder weather is here to stay for the month of April. These cold temperatures are expected to impact the Midwest (corn belt), as well as Canada. This is likely to prevent an early planting season, as soil moisture and temperature is key to successfully planting. The soil temperature should be a minimum of 50F for the majority of time that the seed is in the ground, and cooler weather projections are not looking favourable for attaining this.  Any weather issue, even minute, is set to impact the markets due to the tightness in stocks, and the volatile market we are in.

Dry weather is holding on in North Dakota, after one of the driest fall/winters (if not the driest) on record.

Northern Argentina saw good rains yesterday, with the west/central growing regions expecting to see good rains through the weekend.  Eastern Argentina remains dry.  Southern Brazil got some much needed rains yesterday, although going forward, forecasts call for only scattered showers, leaving overall dryness still a concern for the safrinha corn crop.

Funds were thought to be mixed today with corn expected to have sold 1,500 contracts (long 410,000), soybeans to have bought 6,000 contracts (long 157,000), and wheat to have sold 1,000 contracts (short 2,000). On Tuesday, funds were not super close to expected, with the exception of soybeans. Corn was a whopping 30,000 contracts shorter than expected, while beans were only 1,000 contracts longer, and wheat was 18,000 contracts shorter.