Fundamentally Speaking

Trading action for the feed ingredients in April was quite dynamic to say the least and as we have said before, if trading is this frenetic now, what will be case once we get into real heart of growing season with new larger daily trading limits?

Nonetheless price advances last month were very impressive and quite historic.

This chart shows the net April price action for spot corn, soybeans and wheat in $/bushel on the left-hand axis and in percent terms on the right-hand axis.

We have gone back to 1986 but I am pretty sure that no April other than the one last month has seen corn post its largest upmove ever in both dollar per bushel and percent terms, wheat the second highest in terms of both, while soybean gains last month were the highest ever in terms of dollars per bushel.

May corn was up $1.76 last month, a stunning 31.2% monthly gain blowing away past strong Aprils such as 1996 and 2011.

May Chicago wheat was up $1.24/bushel last month, a 20% rise from what was seen at the end of March and other than $1.43 rise in April 1996, a 28.7% advance, appears to be the best wheat performance in April ever.

As for soybeans, the $1.34 gain last month for the May contract is the largest dollar per bushel gain ever for the month of April with the 9.3% gain in percent terms only exceeded in April 2016 and April 2009.

What's also very interesting on this graph is this dynamic April 2021 trading action comes exactly a year after corn's 8.5% drop in April 2020, the largest ever decline for that month, and beans' 4.1% fall in April 2020 (the third largest drop for that month).

Wheat's 6.9% tumble was one of the largest April declines ever seen.

What a difference a year makes.

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