Grain and livestock futures end mostly higher except for fractional losses in soybeans.
Mike Zuzulo, Global Commodity Analytics, says wheat led the price rally with gains in the three classes of 11 to 19 1/2 cents as traders were putting in weather premium and funds were covering short positions.
Forecasts for extreme weather in U.S. winter wheat country with red flag warnings in the Southern Plains drove the buying.
A weaker U.S. dollar and stronger demand were also supportive to the wheat futures markets.
However, Zuzulo says the wheat markets ran up into chart resistance and especially the soft red winter wheat saw gains trimmed.
Corn got some spillover strength from the rally in wheat and the lack of new tariff news, but gains were muted.
Soybeans saw fractional losses on South American harvest pressure.
A disappointing NOPA crush report also held back the soy complex as it showed 177.8 million bushels of soybeans crushed in Feb. which was the lowest in 5 months.
Soybean oil stocks were also above expectations at 1.503 billion pounds.
Cattle and hog futures both gapped higher on the open Monday morning.
Live cattle made new highs for the move and feeder cattle hit all-time highs and negated last week’s daily reversal.
Fundamentally, the cattle and hogs saw support from a rally in the stock market and a more risk on attitude in the outside markets.
However, the cattle futures were also chasing the sharply higher cash cattle trade.
Southern live deals were marked at $202-$203, $5 to $6 higher than the previous week’s weighted averages.
Northern dressed business had a range of $320-$330, mostly $325, $9 higher than the prior week’s weighted average basis Nebraska. Live sale prices were mostly $205-$206.
Zuzulo says hogs got a boost from news of the first case of H7N9 in a broiler operation in the U.S. since 2017.
Plus, the National Pork Producers Council announced successful efforts to renew registrations of all 300 plus U.S. pork harvesting and cold storage facilities eligible to export to China.
