I would imagine they are still available, but when my children were young, one of the popular books we would look at for entertainment was Where’s Waldo?. For the benefit of those who may not have seen this series, Waldo was a young man, always dressed in the same clothing and carrying the same gear, who was on a worldwide trek. The objective was to find Waldo amidst the various places around the globe that he ventured to, which were always filled with unusual characters and situations. I guess you could say Waldo was always hidden within a lot of noise and confusion, much of it nonsensical, not unlike markets. What brought this to mind this morning had nothing to do with children’s books but rather the absence of China in our export markets for the past few days. Where’s China? Are they just well-hidden at this time, and with a little more study, will become obvious again? Or, have they leapt to another page or maybe even another book, where they might show up and surprise us at a later date? Perhaps we have just become too accustomed to seeing their name pop up every day with additional purchases, but officially they have now been absent since the 15th. It is probably too early to become overly concerned, particularly when it comes to corn, and the markets obviously are not. Still, it never hurts to pay attention, at least when there is a shift in pattern or behavior.
China was in the news this morning concerning their pork output, though. Ag officials in that country are forecasting that by the Lunar New Year, which begins on the 11th of February, pork supplies will be 30% higher than a year ago. Through the first three quarters of 2020, they have already built 12,500 new large-scale hog facilities and repopulated 13,000 other farms. Granted, this does not bring that back to the same output as before the outbreak of African Swine Fever, but they would appear to be on target to meet the goal of 80% return by the end of this year.
With the pressure we have seen this morning, it is an opportune time to take a look at the performance in the U.S. Dollar. This index tried to push higher last week but ran into a brick wall as it approached the 94 level and has since slipped down to the lowest level traded since mid-September. Keep in mind that we remain within that same range that we have since the end of July and have indicator close to the oversold zone. Unless something very unusual, such as a contested Presidential election occurs, this may be the low end for the dollar trade for the time being.
