Grain markets are lower at midday:
Corn – 4 ¾ cents/bu(Mar @ 3.72 ¼ )
Soybeans – 5 cents/bu (Jan @ 8.96 ¼ )
Chi Wheat – 6 ¼ cents/bu (Mar @ 5.17 ½ )
Cdn $ +0.00215 (75.795 cents)
WTI Crude Oil -0.46/barrel (58.79)
Grain markets are under some pressure at midday, as a lack of buyers allowed corn and soybean futures to slip below technical chart support. That has allowed some technical selling to come to the market. Traders are wary of selling off the market too much, as if news of a trade deal between China and the USA should be announced, the markets would definitely rally. A pullback in soybean futures should not come as a complete surprise, considering the fact that the soybeans have closed higher for 6 consecutive trading sessions, so some profit taking was bound to come to the market sooner or later.
Today’s price action is an example of “buy the rumor, sell the fact” trading mentality, as the USDA did confirm this morning that exporters sold 26.6 million bushels of soybeans in the last 24 hours (724,000 tonnes). OF that total, 21.5 million bushels were sold to China, while the rest was sold to “unknown destinations”, presumably China as well. The key to watch is whether we get any further reports of Chinese buying in the next 48 hours, or some verification from the White House of what their plan of action is vis a vis December 15
th, and implementation of new tariffs