Fundamentally Speaking

Joel Karlin
DTN Contributing Analyst

Even with the recent slide in values, most agricultural commodities have seen some price appreciation since the beginning of the year with soybean oil the most desultory with values essentially unchanged over the past five months.

Despite a record South American soybean crop and slowing demand in China soybean meal and soybeans were two of the top five performers so far this year, up 26.6% and 20.2% respectively.

While Brazilian soybean output this year was an all-time high, drought in that country adversely impacted production of orange juice and coffee, the latter of which had the largest increase in price of 57.0%.

Here in the U.S., a brutal winter that plagued much of the country and contributed to a 1.0% fall in first quarter U.S. GDP helped constrain milk productivity in some key producing states helping Class III milk to a 25.4% gain in the first five months of the year.

This weather also bottled up quite a few of the nation's railcars contributing to the 37.4% increase in the price of ethanol.

Of the 25 commodities that are tracked, only four saw price declines.

It should not be too surprising that in light of news reflecting the recent slowdown in housing construction; a key driver of economic activity, that two of the commodities used extensively in that industry, copper and lumber are down for the year at 6.4% and 14.0% respectively as lumber posted the biggest declines of any of these 25 commodities.

(KA)

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