Grains Rebound After Friday's Weak Close
Feb 04, 2013
Good Morning! Paul Georgy with early morning comments for February 4, 2013 at 5:00 am. Grain futures are higher on short covering and weather concerns. Traders are watching weather in South America and getting positioned for the monthly supply and demand report on Friday, Feb 8 at 11:00 am. Rains have finished across Argentina and southern #Brazil. Spotty showers are possible this week but very limited in amount of moisture. Temps are expected to warm up in the high 80’s to mid 90’s this week. The second week of the forecast has more rain with much better coverage. Egypt bought a cargo of US wheat over the weekend. US #wheat is now the cheapest in the world. The CFTC commitment of traders report showed managed money increasing long positions in corn by 12,927 and soybeans by 7,223 contracts. They also reduced short wheat positions by 3,232 contracts. The USDA #Cattle Inventory report shows cattle numbers at lowest level since 1952. However the report looks like cow-calf producers are starting to build beef cow herds. We believe they are just trying to offset the culling they had to do this summer because of the drought. Packer margins continue to be in the red due to resistance in consumer demand. Boxed beef was sharply lower again on Friday with choice down 2.76 and select down 1.63. Russia is still planning to ban US beef and pork starting Feb 11. Pork cutout value was up 1.77. The feeder cattle index was up .13 to 146.27.
Markets as of 5:00 AM
- Mar #Corn +5
- Mar #Beans +16 1/4
- Mar Wheat +7 1/4
- Feb Cattle Steady-Lower
- Feb Hogs Steady-Higher
- Mar Dlr +.34
- Mar S&P -2.75
- Mar Crude -.89
- Feb Gold -5.40
