Monday May 6, 2024

• Friday morning flash sale: 122k mt of soybeans to unknown destination for 23/24 delivery.
• The US job report came out on Friday missing Aprils expectations with 175k jobs created through the month vs the expected 243k. The unemployment rate now sits at 3.9% still historically low. 
• What is going on with the wheat market?
  • The July wheat market passed the 200-day moving average on Friday but failed to close above the 200-day moving average. Price action was mostly driven by dry weather in Ukraine and Russia. Russia saw record temperatures and low precipitation in April. 
  • Technical moves for July wheat having been playing between the 100-day and 200-day moving average. The fundamentals of this move seems to be mostly technical momentum, and fund short covering. 
• Weather
  • Widespread rains were saw over the weekend, the western corn belt and the plains saw the most, more rains to move in today. Drier weather in the 6-10 forecast, hopefully providing a planting window. 
  • Rains in Argentina seen in the northeast, with most of the harvest area dry. 
  • Brazil rains hold in the south increasing flooding concerns. Reuters reported potential soybean losses of between 2mmt and 5mmt. 
• Fund Positions
  • Corn sitting historically large with net short positions of 213k contracts, soybeans sitting net short 141k contracts, and wheat net short 50k contracts.