AM Comments December 31 2024
Good morning. Happy New Year's Eve. Markets in Chicago are mostly higher to start Tuesday trade, with beans/meal being the upside leader to start the session. Interesting will be action through the morning, as we expect volume to decline into the close due to tonight's holiday celebrations. Yesterday's trade also started the day higher, but rolled over by mid-morning as buying dried up above chart-based resistance. There remains an overall lack of fresh news this morning, and we expect this theme to largely continue through the day on Tuesday. Corn futures this morning are trading 2-3 cents higher, soybean futures are trading 3-4 cents higher, and the Chicago wheat market is up 2-3 cents also. Products are mixed, soybean meal is up $3-4/ton, and soybean oil is down 10-20 points. Outside markets are mixed also, crude oil futures are down 5-10 cents/bbl, the Dow Jones index is up 75 points, and the US$ index is trading either side of unchanged. The S&P500 is up 20 points and the NASDAQ is up 60 points.
Today's Reports: API Energy Stocks
- On the first notice day for January deliveries, the CME Group announced there were 1,116 contracts of soybean meal assigned for delivery, 425 contracts of soybean oil, and 109 contracts of soybeans.
- Yesterday afternoon's CFTC commitment of traders report, delayed to Monday due to the Christmas holiday last week, showed funds as of Tuesday, December 24th were net-long 159,415 contracts of corn (-6,475 on the week), net-short 76,252 contracts of soybeans (-17,933), and net-short 87,401 contracts of Chicago wheat (-20,621).
- In soy products, funds are now net-short 96,371 contracts of soybean meal (-7,400 on the week), and are also net-short 19,561 contracts of soybean oil (-22,199). To view our new COT charts, please click here.
- The CME Group sent out an update Monday afternoon stating that all agriculture markets will be closing at 12:15pm central time on Thursday, January 9th, with settlement prices derived at 12:00pm central time to observe a National Day of Mourning for the death of former President Jimmy Carter. Outside markets, including energies, metals, currencies, and the stock index futures will all see normal trading hours on that day.
- China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on Tuesday announced approval of five gene-edited crop verities, including two soybean varieties, and one variety each of wheat, corn and rice. The new certificates will be valid for five years from December 25th.
- The US Treasury Department announced overnight that Chinese state-sponsored hackers had breached the department's computer security guard rails earlier this month and stole sensitive documents in what officials are describing as a "major incident".
- Weather forecasts for the US remained mostly unchanged again for Tuesday; a low pressure system looks to continue providing rain/snow for the central Midwest through the day and into Tuesday night. Where exactly the transition occurs will be hard to predict. Elsewhere, the rest of the country looks to be on the dry side for most of the day, with rain/snow returning to the PNW later in the night tonight.
- The Midwest will be relatively quiet for a few days then after this, with "the big one" then likely set for Sunday night/Monday morning. Models have been fluctuating in regards to exact amounts/locations but generally speaking, 3-6" of snowfall is possible for an area from NE through the southern Midwest and into TN/KY. This system will also usher in much cooler air from the north, with highs next Monday seen in the single digits through most of the northern Midwest.
- As we mentioned yesterday, week-two precip outlooks are continuing to issue drier than normal outlooks for most of the country with the exception of the northern Plains; this will continue to be monitored into next week.
- More of the same in South America on Monday, as Argentina saw light rains in the far south while the rest of the country was mostly dry. Models had seen the chances for some scattered showers through the central part of the country last night and tonight, but these rains have been pulled from the forecast now this morning. Brazil continued to see normal to above normal rains in the north and northeast, while southern areas were again mostly dry.
- Forecast updates for the rest of the week overnight were minimal; models continue to show light rain chances through western Argentina over the next 5 days, while eastern areas into southern Brazil look to remain dry. The rest of Brazil besides the far south is still expected to see normal rains, with week-two outlooks seen similarly. Heat is expected to continue expanding through most of Argentina and into southern Brazil which will stay needing monitored.
- As a reminder, markets will trade normal hours today and then will be closed tonight, tomorrow, and tomorrow night, with another hard 8:30am cst re-open set for Thursday morning. Thursday through the end of the week then will have normal trading hours.
- Be safe ringing in the New Year this evening!