Grains and hogs end higher, with cattle lower Thursday.
Jeff Hoogendoorn with Professional Ag Marketing says corn and soybeans saw fund short covering as traders were adding some weather premium on hot dry extended forecasts and ideas of yield may be trimmed a bit.
“The think a little bit is the key word there. We need to make sure we don’t make a big thing out of something that isn’t a huge game changer but we continue to be dry in the far East and we continue to be pretty dry in the West. There are places climbing up on five, six weeks without rain,” he explains.
However, new crop exports for corn and beans were also supportive with the weekly export total on soybeans at 96.1 million bushels and corn at 58.8 million.
“That’s helpful and we’re hoping to see more news like that as the weeks progress. We’ve had the dollar index get trimmed so that should help us on the export side. We should be close to being the cheapest game in town,” he says.
This may be evidence he says that prices have gotten cheap enough to stimulate demand.
Wheat also saw some fund short covering like the rest of the grain complex and Hoogendoorn says this may be evidence the managed money want to buy into the ag sector.
Cattle futures set back on fund long liquidation and lower cutouts.
Cash trade also developed during the session in the North with dressed deal at mostly $292, down $2 from last week’s weighted average.
In the South prices were $182 to mostly $183 live, which was steady.
Hog futures continue to shine with more technical buying after the recent chart breakout and strong weekly exports.
However, Hoogendoorn warns that market is oversold and the December lean hog contract is right up into resistance at the June highs.
