Soybeans up 11¢. Wednesday, March 20, 2024

May corn is down a penny this morning.

May soybeans are up 11¢.

CBOT wheat is down 8¾¢. KC wheat is down 11¼¢. Minneapolis wheat is down 8¼¢.

“May corn futures are roughly 30¢ off their February low, while May soybeans are about 64¢ off their lows, after trading nearly 90¢ off those lows last week,” said Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist for StoneX, near today’s market open. “The various wheat markets are roughly 10¢ to 20¢ off their lows. Fund managers still hold large short positions in these markets, although they have started to unwind them as we enter into a period of higher weather risk in major producing areas of the world.”

This morning USDA announced unknown destinations are buying 120,000 metric tons of soybeans for the 2024/2025 marketing year.

“It’s Fed Day on Wall Street – the day in which we learn how sentiment among policymakers serving on the Federal Open Market Committee has changed regarding monetary policy,” says Suderman. “…The Federal Reserve’s biggest challenge today is to accurately communicate a message that will drive sentiment among both consumers and Wall Street traders in a way that will help reach its goal.

“That’s difficult to do when the receivers of its message have a strong bias in what they ‘want’ to hear…. In this case, consumers ‘want’ to hear that we’re about to see lower interest rates that will lower their payments on credit cards, while making buying a house more affordable. Wall Street ‘wants’ to hear that interest rates are going down, which tends to stimulate the economy while increasing corporate profits.”

Al Kluis, managing director for Kluis Commodity Advisors, says with today’s anticipated announcement from the Federal Reserve, he expects a volatile trading day.

Live cattle are down 18¢. Feeder cattle are up 33¢. Lean hogs are down 13¢.

Crude oil is down $1.25.

S&P 500 futures are down 4 points. Dow futures are down 39 points.

Milling wheat is down on the MATIF exchange. Corn and soybeans are down on the Dalian exchange.

Tags: corn, soybeans, wheat, futures, live cattle, feeder cattle, lean hogs