Get more daily market reports from Pro Farmer, start a free trial here.
Good Morning farm country. Davis Michaelsen here with your morning update for Friday, March 19. From Pro Farmer’s First Thing Today, these are some of the stories we are watching this morning:
Corn futures are steady to a penny higher in most contracts after a quiet overnight session. Soybean futures are 2 to 5 cents higher, retracing a portion of yesterday’s losses. SRW wheat is fractionally higher, HRW wheat is choppy to lower and spring wheat futures are up 2 to 4 cents. The U.S. dollar index is marginally lower and crude oil futures are trying to retrace some of yesterday’s big losses. Today is “quadruple witching” day, with stock options, stock futures and futures options expiring; this could provide some extra volatility.
Jim Wyckoff, a veteran commodity market analyst, writes, “Thursday’s big price decline in crude fired a shot across the bow for raw commodity market bulls. If oil prices take out Thursday’s low, such would be one clue that many of the raw commodity sector markets that had been in rally modes, may have topped out, at least for the near term, including the grains.”
This morning, workers at Argentina’s Rosario grain port hub will start a 24-hour strike, protesting layoffs at one of the companies in the sector, according to Pablo Reguera, secretary at the local CGT labor umbrella group.
The past three days, USDA has announced 3.076 MMT of daily old-crop corn sales to China, but the market has largely ignored the huge sales, signaling the news may already have been “in the market.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in opening the talks Thursday detailed Washington’s problems with China, citing cyberattacks, China’s crackdown on Hong Kong and threats against Taiwan. These activities, he said, “threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability.”
President Joe Biden announced that today, 58 days into his presidency, the country will reach 100 million coronavirus vaccine shots, a goal he hoped to achieve in his first 100 days. Biden said that the shorter timeline meant there would be enough doses for every American before the summer.
The European Union’s health agency said the Covid-19 vaccine produced by AstraZeneca PLC was “safe and effective” and didn’t increase the risk of blood clots, a decision that prompted France, Italy, Spain and Portugal to say they would resume inoculation campaigns.
The House passed two immigration bills largely along party lines that would provide a citizenship path for illegal immigrants and legal status for immigrant farmworkers. The bills face steep odds in the evenly divided Senate. Republicans are increasingly opposed to any new immigration measure, noting the worsening situation at what they call an “open border.”
Logjams at U.S. ports are spreading beyond Southern California’s choked gateways, and shipping officials are projecting the backups will continue into the summer, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Cash cattle prices improved to $115 to $116 in Nebraska and Iowa yesterday after trade at $114 earlier in the week. Action in other markets has occurred at steady prices of $114. Today, traders will shift their attention to USDA’s monthly Cattle on Feed Report.
Hog futures set back amid some profit-taking Thursday, with a pullback in the cattle complex and strength in the U.S. dollar index adding incentive to that end. Cash hog bids jumped $1.42 yesterday.
