Grain prices end the day lower. Wednesday, April 6, 2022

May corn was down 3 ¼ cents with December corn down 1 ¾ cents. May soybean futures were 11 ½ cents lower with November beans down 11 ¾ cents. May Chicago wheat closed down 7 cents. May Kansas City wheat closed up 2 cents, and May Minneapolis wheat closed down 3 cents.

Livestock prices closed the day higher. Live cattle futures finished the day up 90 cents on the June contract, May feeder cattle closed up 95 cents and June lean hog futures closed the day 35 cents higher.

Meat did see a little rebound today. Recent demand has been a bit sluggish for beef and pork, but we are likely carving out a near term low. Look for a consolidated trade in beef and pork the rest of the week.

Crude oil is down $4.96 and the Dow futures were 144 points lower.

A choppy but lower trade today for U.S. grain prices. We saw some profit taking ahead of the USDA’s WASDE report that will be released on Friday morning at 11 a.m. CT.
Planting progress will be on hold this week. Some much needed moisture is moving across the entire Corn Belt and will keep planting from ramping up. A good rule of thumb is in the U.S. is to have 50% of corn planted by May 10, so it has the best chance to achieve trend line or better yield.

Bear spreads are working today as grain prices pull back. The markets have spent most of the morning lower, but we did see corn and wheat push a little higher. However, they are now trading back lower. Traders seem to be taking some money out of the market as they prepare for Friday’s WASDE report from the USDA. However, we have a lot of friendly fundamentals for U.S. grain prices.

At midday, May corn futures are down 8¢ to 9¢ with December corn futures down 4¢ to 5¢. May soybean futures are 12¢ to 13¢ lower with November futures down 13¢ to 14¢. May Chicago wheat is 10¢ lower. May Kansas City wheat is 6¢ lower, and May Minneapolis is 12¢ lower.

Livestock prices are higher with live cattle up 57¢, feeder cattle are 75¢ higher and lean hogs up 55¢ per hundred. Livestock markets are higher today after a lower trade yesterday. Demand continues to be a bit sluggish lately as exports have slowed down due to COVID hitting Japan and China. The weekly export sales report will be released tomorrow.

Crude oil is down $2.76 this morning, and the Dow futures are 302 points lower.

Weather will be a key factor to watch as spring planting progresses.

Not a lot of new news for the market to trade on this morning. To keep a bull market pushing higher, we need to feed the bull fresh news daily. Today feels like a slight correction in a broader bullish market.

May corn futures are 4¢ lower this morning. May soybean futures are 1¢ lower. May Chicago wheat is 5¢ lower, and May Kansas City wheat futures are 4¢ lower. May Minneapolis wheat futures are 10¢ lower.

China stepped in again this morning and bought 132,000 metric tons of old-crop soybeans. We continue to see China very active in buying old-crop bushels from the U.S. as the crop in South America is a lot smaller than initially anticipated.

Livestock prices are higher this morning. Live cattle are 20¢ to 30¢ higher. Feeder cattle are $1.45 higher and lean hog futures are 20¢ to 30¢ higher. Livestock markets were hit hard yesterday. We are seeing an exit of money come out of the beef and pork complexes as COVID seems to be rearing its head again in China and Japan causing demand to slow up.

Crude oil is up 25¢ this morning and the stock market is down 248 points to start off Wednesday’s trade.

Watch where we close today. If we can get May corn futures to close above $7.60, this could push us up to old contract highs.

Successful Farming

Tags: futures, live cattle, livestock prices, feeder cattle, corn, soybean, wheat, lean hog