Market Comments
By Jim Stephens,
President of Farmers National Commodities, Inc.
Market Update for October
21, 2008
Grain futures prices continue to have difficulty
sustaining any recovery with wide daily fluctuations based on strength in the
dollar, oil futures prices, and perception of how we are doing with the
financial crisis. It could be mid to late November before we start to see
some stability and recovery in this market.
Corn
harvest is running behind normal as farmers focus on soybean harvest when
weather is favorable. We are also hearing reports that corn is not drying
down to harvestable levels due to stalk problems and frequent rain showers.
Lodging has not been too much of a concern so far; but with a major storm
moving across the cornbelt this week, it could be a concern by next week.
Moisture levels in corn have held in the 20% to 25% range in a lot of fields.
When soybean harvest gets wrapped up, we should start to see increased activity
in the corn harvest. Yields are close to expected levels in Illinois while a
little disappointing in some of the other cornbelt states. This is especially
the case where planting was delayed for an extended period due to wet fields
last spring only to be followed by an extended dry period in late summer.
Soybean yields have been variable as
well with more reports of yields a little less than expected rather than
bigger than expected. We could see a slight lowering of soybean crop size in
the January crop report based on recent harvest results.
Wheat continues to have difficulty finding any internal
support due to an increase of world and US supplies. Feed use of wheat is on
the increase in the world market which will help lower some of these
available supplies this winter. We could see some support later this winter
based on crop concerns in Australia when that crop is harvested later this
year.
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