Grain markets are mixed this afternoon:
Corn + 6 ¾ cents/bu (July @ 3.27 ¼ )
Soybeans -4 ½ cents/bu (July @ 8.44)
Chi Wheat +11 ¼ cents/bu (July @ 5.16)
Cdn $ +0.00085 (72.66 cents)
WTI Crude Oil + 0.57 /barrel (33.37)
Grain markets remain mixed as the trade waits for news to push them significantly positive or negative.
The weekly EIA Report was released today for the week ending May 22nd. The report stated that commercial crude oil stocks rose 7.9 million barrels to 534.4 million bushels, and ethanol stocks have dropped 0.4 million barrels to 23.2 million barrels. Ethanol production rose for the fourth week in a row to 724,000 barrels/day up from 663,000 the previous week. This is significantly down from the ethanol production for this week last year which reached 1,057 thousand barrels/day, but still a positive report to see that ethanol production is continuing to increase. This is helping support the current corn market.
It was announced yesterday that China purchased 10 cargoes of soybeans from Brazil. This may be an early result of political conflict between China and the U.S. as they continue to escalate tensions. U.S. beans are priced more competitively than Brazil’s beans, so the purchase does not seem to be price motivated. This bearish news are contributing to lower soybean values. Canada-China relations may also be on the rocks as the British Columbia Supreme Court refused to stop U.S. extradition proceedings for Chinese Huwaei CFO, Meng Wanzhou yesterday in court.
While no USDA flash sales have been announced, the independent strength of the wheat market seems to suggest that some business may be occurring behind the scenes.
In more China news, China approved a security law to enforce in Hong Kong. The U.S. is in direct opposition of this rule, and what it means for the freedom of Hong-Kong residents, and may look into sanctions on China as a result.
Unemployment numbers in the U.S. totaled 2.123 million last week, down from 2.446 the week before, but higher than the estimated 2.100 million. The numbers will continue to shrink as the economy slowly begins to reopen.