- Today’s market opening saw a strong start with an open chart gap in Nov ’17 soybeans, which spurred additional buying. Funds have been active buyers upon their return from the holiday weekend and also were active in December corn as they cover net short positions, and wheat has joined in for the trip!
- The CRB Index has rallied strongly with crude oil up $1.50/barrel in the face of strong global demand and uncertainty over hurricane Irma, which if hot on the heels of the damage already done by Harvey.
- The USDA September Crop Report will be released one week from today. The trade is generally looking for increased yield/production based on good/excellent condition ratings rising through August. However, producers would argue that the great variability of the crop leaves some doubt on this analysis with USDA field surveys to gain in crop size importance. Russia has now harvested 67.8 million mt of wheat and 17.5 million mt of barley. The yield to date is record large at 3.84 mt/ha (57 bushels/acre vs last year’s record 47.1 bushels/acre). The Russian wheat yield seems impossible, being well above the US. However, Russia has had extremely favourable weather and really advanced their agronomics of wheat farming. Russia’s massive wheat crop will have an export tail well into early 2019.
- It has been a macro day with the CRB Index rallying sharply with gains noted across the commodity spectrum.Hurricane Irma is a dangerous storm and it looks likely to make landfall in FL. The storm’s sheer strength is causing some issues for the forecast models.