Carolina Ag Advisors Weekly Wrap-up

From February 24, 2023

Rick’s Reflections
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 General Market/News

Home sales in January slowed for the 12th straight month. The housing market is now the weakest it has been since 2010.
The war in Ukraine is now surpassing its one-year anniversary. There is expectation that Russia will use the anniversary to mount an intensified offensive campaign.
With the delayed harvest in Brazil, it is now being reported that more than half of the second corn crop (safrinha corn crop) will be planted late and outside of the ideal planting window. On the other hand, the Mato Grosso region is ahead of planting compared to last year.
A split 2-1 ruling a federal court has struck down part of a law that blocked PETA from conducting undercover news operations in North Carolina. The law in question is “North Carolina’s Property Protection Act” which punished people who gain access to nonpublic areas that exceeds the persons authority to enter. The judges that voted to strike down the law cited protected speech.

Commodities this week
The USDA Outlook Forum took place in DC this week. To kick off this event the USDA releases some early expectations on acres and yield for corn and beans. The acre numbers were 91 million for corn (up 2.4 from last year), Soybeans steady at 87.5 million acres. The projected corn yield is 181.5bpa and soybeans came in at 52bpa. Both of these projected yields would be record high yields and are above the 30 year straight-line trend. With the release of these numbers Thursday morning the corn market has moved considerably lower, while the soybean market has softened but not at the same rate.
Wheat for 23-24 crop was pegged at 49.5 million acres up 3.8 from the 22-23 crop. Wheat yield for 23-24 is projected to be up 6% to 49.2bpa. This overall increase in wheat production and weakness in the corn market has pulled wheat prices down as well this week.

All prices were gathered the afternoon of Friday, February 24, 2023, and compared to open price on Monday morning.

+ Oil, down $0.60 a barrel to $76.07
+ March 2023 Corn, down 28 cents to $6.50
+ Dec 2023 Corn, down 19 cents at $5.76
+ March 2023 Beans, down 7 cents to $15.29
+ Nov 2023 Soybeans, down 16 cents to $13.74
+ July 2023 Wheat, down 55 cents to $7.29
+ March 2023 Cotton, up 2.3 cents to $82.60
+ Dec 2023 Cotton, up 1.9 at $84.35

Local Basis Talk
Old crop corn basis seems to have some nearby weakness due to high efficiency of rail movements. Next Tuesday all march futures contracts will expire. If you have not priced basis contracts by then they will be rolled to the May futures if they have not already been rolled by the company in which you sold the grain.