Big moves lower in both Chicago corn and soybeans weighed on wheat last night. A number of bearish fundamentals attributed to last night’s sell off in the row crops. The sell-off in soybeans did manage to pull the market back to a more neutral position technically.
As usual it was speculation that created the most pressure.
The US EPA are said to be looking into ways to assist oil companies, who say they are under financial strain, committing the renewable fuel mandate. In other words the rise in corn and bean values is making it more expensive than it used to be to blend up some ethanol into the mix. Thoughts that the government would relax the mandate produced a degree of panic selling in both corn and soybeans.
The US cash market saw corn basis slip a little at some locations while those closer to feed consumers were generally happy to keep basis flat. Soybean basis was hit hard at some locations, as much as 26c/bu lower. Private analyst also pegged the US soybean crop well above the current USDA data, that didn’t help.
In the US northern plains and Canadian prairies there’s been a little rain over the last 24 hours. Saskatoon SK 22mm (June 37mm), Moose Jaw 23mm (June 60mm), Regina 7.5mm (June 19mm), Estevan 0mm (heart of the durum belt, June 0mm), Brandon MB 13.5mm (June 25mm), Winnipeg MB 0mm (June 41mm). Further west across the canola fields of Saskatchewan and Alberta rainfall varied from 26mm at Lloydminster SK (39mm June) in the north to 13mm at Kindersley SK (June 32mm) in the south. Edmonton AB 10mm (June 18mm) and Coronation AB in the south 15mm (June 37mm). The Peace River area of Alberta saw trace falls. So not the driest of droughts in Canada.