3/19/2021

Yesterday's widespread sell-off in commodities left a lot of people scratching their heads.  It seems like a laundry list of everything market negative combined to create a perfect storm.  The meeting between China and the US started off on a sour note, the dollar index rallied again, grain in S. America is a discount to the US, rain in Argentina and the US corn belt, ASF in china, and some seasonal sell pressure ahead of planting season.  Trade went home, slept on it, and this morning said, "Yesterday never happened."  We gained back almost everything lost on Thursday, with nearby corn and soybeans both finishing only 1 cent below Wednesday's market close.  Week-to-week on the nearby, corn was 18 higher and beans 3 higher.  USDA announced 800,000 tonnes of corn to China for 2020/21 delivery this morning.  That's a 4-day sales total of 153 million bushels all to China.  ProFarmer released their estimates for the planting intentions report with corn on the higher end at 93.4 million acres and soybeans on the lower end at 88.9 million acres.  Based on the increase in demand for fertilizer, this would appear to be a more reasonable estimate than what the USDA gave us earlier this month.  Tomorrow is the first day of Spring!