Thursday March 5 2020

• Markets opened lower this morning as they run into technical resistance after rebounding from recent lows
• The Canadian government followed the FED and lowered benchmark interest rates by 50 points yesterday and are expected to cut another 25 points in April
• The Chinese government continues to encourage farmers to plant and reach pre-coronavirus production targets
• USDA has raised the Argentinian bean production by 1.1 MMT despite poor growing and harvest conditions
  • the upcoming tax increase is expected to lower production for Argentina in the upcoming years
• Average trade estimates for next weeks USDA supply and demand reports are looking for very minor changes to carry-outs  with a small decrease in corn and small increases in beans and wheat
• U.S. Ag secretary Perdue confirmed rhetoric that China is expected to begin purchases late spring and end of summer
  • One fear here is that purchases this late will be new crop and not help the current lagging export pace
• China has recently began stepping up purchases of U.S. grain sorghum in favour of corn pulling it out of ethanol plants with purchases expected to continue