Commodity Comments: 

1/16/24

The Crop report definitely held a few surprises. 

The surprise in corn came with a 2.6 bu boost to the corn acreage to leave the final number at 177.3. Harvested acreage did get reduced by roughly half a million acres. Unfortunately export demand has NOT increased. Feed usage increased by 25 MBU and ethanol by 50MBU. Overall ending stocks were increased to 2.162BBU. 

PNW export business has been quite slim for Dec and Jan. Feb and March do have a little more booked but the US seems to be really struggling to get anything additional done. I would say that roughly half of the corn trains that JVG has on the books will go domestic. A domestic market is defintiely a good thing because it is a home for corn but a domestic market is also very limited. A feedlot may need 5 trains a month and when that is filled up, they are done. Unless something changes, I am not sure where all of this corn will end up. The futures show a carry but not certain what to think about summer basis levels.

The soybean yield was increased to 50.6 bu/acre from 49.9. Harvested acreage was reduced by 400,000. Exports remained unchanged from the December report.  

A few traders were anticipating a smaller South American crop and it did hold true in Brazil, but Argentina saw a slight increase.

Further US Soybean demand for export will be based on South American crop timing and size. Back in December, the newly elected Argentine President devalued their peso, which made the US even further out of the market than they already were.  

Rail service was at a stand still over the weekend with the excessively cold temps. The cars are unable to build air in those kind of temps. So please be patient as our locations wait on trains to get the crop moved out.  

If you ever have any questions regarding the different types of contracts that JVG offers, please give us a call.  We have cash, futures fixed, Minimum Price, Averaging and Basis Fixed available.  Also, if you hear of different kinds of contracts that you may be interested, let us know.   

Stay warm!

Tiffany Heier