DTN Closing Grain Comments

Whew!

(DTN illustration by Nick Scalise)

General Comments:

May corn was 7 1/2 cents lower at $3.81 with December 7 1/4 cents lower at $4.05. May soybeans finished 22 3/4 cents lower at $10.15 1/4 with November down 23 1/4 cents at $10.19. May Chicago wheat closed 1 3/4 cents lower at $4.55 3/4, July Kansas City added 1 cent to $5.04 1/4, and May Minneapolis lost 4 1/2 cents to $5.78 1/2. June gold was $1.80 higher at $1,339.10 with May silver down $0.117 and June copper losing $0.0535. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 42 points to 26,991, though well off session lows. May crude oil dipped $0.25 to $63.26. The May distillates (heating oil) contract was $0.0266 lower, May RBOB gasoline lost $0.0106, and May natural gas rallied $0.029.

Corn:

Corn closed lower Wednesday, but the damage could've been much worse. Overnight soybean losses of 50-plus cents dropped corn 16 cents before most had wiped the sleep from their eyes. However, by the end of the day, contracts had erased roughly 10 cents of the overnight loss. On the back burner remains administrative shenanigans with the RFS program, an issue that hasn't fully taken hold in the market yet. Analysts will take note of Thursday's weekly export sales and shipment numbers, for the week ended Thursday, March 29, then do all the calculations for what that might mean for total demand and ending stocks.

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Soybeans:

The soybean market was facing a monumental collapse in the pre-dawn hours Wednesday morning. However, as the day wore on the realization that China's retaliatory tariff on another set of U.S. commodities, including soybeans, was but a proposal that hinged on the U.S. implementing its latest threatened import tariffs. As the closing bell rang out, the market had actually performed relatively well in limiting its loss. As with corn, analysts will take a close look at Thursday's weekly export sales and shipment numbers, not for possible effects of proposed tariffs but to keep track of how far U.S. export demand is behind USDA's projected pace.

Wheat:

Wheat was included in China's latest tariff proposal, though other than an initial drop to a double-digit loss the Kansas City HRW market shrugged its shoulders and moved higher on continued weather concerns. You see, China holds roughly 50% of world ending stocks, and the U.S. doesn't export much wheat these days anyway. Therefore, a bigger concern is the effects of continued adverse weather across the U.S. Southern Plains on what HRW crop might be left. Wednesday night into Thursday morning is expected to see record cold -- well below freezing -- though it might be hard to freeze something that is already dead.

Darin Newsom canbe reached at darin.newsom@dtn.com

Follow Darin on Twitter @DarinNewsom

(CZ)

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