12/21/2023

As we near the extended holiday weekend, trade continues to look disinterested in commodities in general. Corn and soybeans have been in a day-to-day pattern of taking turns selling off. We are in full holiday mode in the markets and there's nothing moving us but chart trade. Our final 2023 production numbers will be out in January and will likely provide our next best opportunity at pricing grain. Weekly net export sales came in at some nice levels and at mid-range of expectations with 1.013 mln tonnes of corn and 1.989 mln tonnes of soybeans sales last week. That was a 7-week low in corn sales but still ahead of the sales pace needed to hit the USDA target. That was also the second best week of the last year for soybeans.

A lack of seasonal snowfall has the drought monitor starting to add more color. Still plenty of time for some significant snowfalls but if current conditions persist, trade will not be able to ignore this.