Grains are sharply higher at midday:

Mar Corn + 18 ½  cents/bu (6.07 ¾  )

Mar Soybeans + 28 ¼  cents/bu (13.83 ¾ )

Mar Chi Wheat + 9 ¾  cents/bu (7.67 ¾  )

Cdn $ + 0.00265 (78.700 cents)

WTI Crude Oil +1.03/barrel (77.11)

The pessimism from yesterday’s trading session seems to have evaporated, despite the fact that the USA had more than a million new positive tests for COVID over the past 24 hours.  It would appear, for now anyways, that many Americans are not willing to allow the presence of COVID to impact their daily lives to the degree that it did in 2021 and earlier.  There will continue to be some dire impacts on some segments of the population, but today’s market action, in the face of record COVID infections, speak loudly to investor sentiment at the moment.

As outside commodity and equity markets rally, underlying support allow grains to flourish as well.  The acceptance that current elevated inflation rates are not “transitory”, but are with us for the foreseeable future, have investors looking to commodities as a hedge against inflation.  If anything, that discussion is becoming more imbedded in analyst’s assessment of the marketplace in 2022.

Fundamental grain news is light today.  Of course, yesterday’s massive reduction by StoneX of it’s Brazilian soybean production forecast is seen as friendly.  They cut soybean production by 11.1 million tonnes.  Say it fast, but that represents a cut of 404 MILLION bushels of production due to dryness in southern Brazil.  This morning’s 2 week weather maps are drier for southern Brazil and Argentina than yesterday’s map runs were.