Wednesday February 19, 2020

• Markets falling off yesterday’s gains – wheat leading the markets lower as it corrects overly inflated gains yesterday
• January NOPA soybean crush numbers came in very strong yesterday at a record 176.9 million bu – 3 of the first 5 months of the 2019/2020 marketing year have been record crush numbers for the month
  • cumulative soybean crush numbers are running just above last years pace 
• Brazilian soybean harvest is running just about average pace at 27% complete 
  • Weather so far cooperating, slightly wet which is slowing harvest in areas but beneficial for soybeans filling pods 
• Ed Usset an economist from the University of Minnesota spoke at a conference in Ontario last month and touched on the two biggest mistakes grain farmers make in regards to marketing: 1) not selling crop before harvest and 2) holding onto crop too long 
  • read the full article on farmersforum.com ; Big marketing mistakes: Nots selling early and leaving grain too long in the bin
• This time of year, with little fundamental market news circulating American farmers start to look at the Corn-Soybean price ratio to see what the market is telling them to plant
  • Based on current new crop corn and bean futures the price ratio is 2.35:1 – this would start to push a farmer towards corn in the U.S. 
  • The pivotal point would be 2.4 where the market is not indicating growing corn or beans but when it starts to dip below that level as it is now that is the market pushing toward more corn acres 
• Coronavirus seems to be falling out of daily headlines 
  • Cases have now surpassed 75,000 and deaths over 2,000 but given that the pace of infection seems to have slowed the markets are getting less concerned with the numbers