While it did not arrive quite in time for Christmas, an estimated 10 million Americans did receive a welcome present over the weekend as President Trump signed into law the latest coronavirus stimulus bill. It is somewhat of a misnomer to just call it a COVID relief package as it was also the authorization of $2.3 trillion to fund the U.S. government through September of next year. In case you had not heard, the Federal government was set to shut down at midnight tonight for lack of funding. While there remains debate as to if it should be higher, many taxpayers will be receiving a check for $600 and will allow those unemployed to receive benefits for fifty weeks, including a boost of $300 per week in benefits. While not surprising, but still stunning, the stimulus bill itself is nearly 5,600 pages long. Not exactly a weekend read. Let’s hope there are lots of pictures, graphs, and footnotes to fill in all those pages. Understandably, the Equity markets greeted this all with “Good Cheer,” and we have the S&P 500 pushing against record highs once again.
We have begun the week on the right foot concerning export sales. All to unknown destinations, the USDA reports sales of 233,700 MT of beans, 149,572 MT of corn, and 33,000 MT of bean oil for the 2020/21 crop year, as well as 125,000 MT for the 2021/22 season.
During the month of November, China imported a total of 6.04 MMT of soybeans, which was more than double the quantity they imported a year ago for that month. Finally, the lion’s share came from the United States as we sent 3.86 MMT of this total. For the year to date, China has imported 20.05 MMT of beans from the United States and 63.1 MMT from Brazil.
Brazil and, to a lesser extent, Argentina received rains over the weekend, but the overall situation remains tenuous. We should see updates on the overall crops this afternoon.
Seeing this is the last week of 2020, much of the action could be limited to year-end position squaring, and volume should be lighter than normal. By no means would this imply the action will not be important and, as I have noted previously, can even become a bit volatile.
Looking at the macros, we find the dollar and energies flat, financial instruments lower, metals higher, and as I mentioned previously, equities strong.
