General Market/News
There has been a lot of talk of the return of $100 oil this week. This is in response OPEC announcing a cut of 1.16 million barrels a day. This most recent cut now brings the total to 3.66 per day cut since November. Russia also announced this week that they would cut production of oil by 500k barrels a day for the rest of the year.
The North Carolina General Assembly has seen some changes this week as Rep. Tricia Cotham from Mecklenburg County switched her party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. With this change the Republicans now have a veto proof super majority in both the house and the senate.
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy met with the President of Taiwan this week. This meeting has raised tensions the in area between China, Taiwan and the US. So far from China it has only been threats and warnings. But there has been an increased military activity from all parties in that area.
Commodities this week
The stress and weariness of last week’s report is now behind us but don’t worry we have another one next week! On Tuesday we will have the monthly WASDE report. Most are not expecting much out of this report due to the large data dump from last week. Another reminder, as planting is now getting started the weekly progress reports have also begun. These are published on Monday’s at 4pm.
US weather is starting to take the center stage as planting has started in the south. Meanwhile, the Dakotas have received 30+ inches of snow in the last week. It still early but mighty hard to get any field work done with ~3ft of snow. South America seems to be full of old news like Argentine drought, huge Brazilian bean crop. Or things that are too soon to know, how will the late planted Safrinha crop mature?
All prices were gathered the afternoon of Thursday, April 6, 2023, and compared to open price on Monday morning. Market closed for Good Friday.
- Oil, up $0.60 a barrel to $80.70. Crude Oil had a huge gap open on Monday morning and is up $6.33 compared to end of last week.
- May 2023 Corn, down 16 cents to $6.43.
- Dec 2023 Corn, down 11 cents $5.56.
- May 2023 Beans, down 18 cents to $14.92.
- Nov 2023 Soybeans, down 15 cents to $13.09.
- July 2023 Wheat, up 27 cents to $7.19.
- May 2023 Cotton, down 18 points to 83.20.
- Dec 2023 Cotton, down 11 points to 83.24.
Local Basis Talk
There has been a lot of talk of soybeans being imported into some east coast US ports. More information to come as this materializes. For now, it looks like cheap Brazilian beans are soon to make an appearance near us! For now, at least this could spell trouble for old crop soybean basis. If the soy-crushers are importing I would venture to say the soy-exporters are not exporting….
Carolina Ag Advisors 