It looks to be a start of a great day unless you are Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. Oops. A lot of information trolling around with today’s FED announcement and the markets trading like Turnaround Tuesday on Wednesday.
The marketplace has investors watching the results of the election in the Netherlands, while at 7:30 A.M. investors will also have a keen eye on this morning’s economic reports at 7:30 A.M. with Business Inventories, CPI, Real earnings and Retail sales. We also will have the EIA Energy Stocks at 9:30 A.M. which should be an interesting number after last night’s API. We have Dairy product Sales at 2:00 P.M. and of course the FED announcement which reminds me of the movie My Cousin Vinnie,” Can you possibly pile on anymore with your biological clock”, and our recent time change which has us all feeling like jet lag. Well the Free Market is waiting.
On the corn front the market is wavering over news of a record Brazilian crop and declines in U.S. exports that have bolstered prices the last few months. Some other competitors to the U.S. export market have emerged and could change the March 31st Planting Intentions report. As an old friend, dear colleague and great grain trader Tim Hannagan told me “it is not what you plant, but what you grow”. Those words will take shape in the coming weeks. In the overnight electronic session the May Corn is currently trading at 364 ¼ which is 2 cents higher. The trading range has been 364 ¾ to 362.
On the ethanol front the April contract posted a trade at 1.519 which is unchanged. The market is currently showing 1 bid at 1.514 and 1 offer at 1.519 and the May Open interest is about to catch up and take over the April Open Interest at 1,740 contracts.
On the crude oil front the American petroleum Institute (API) data showed a decline of 531 thousand barrels versus expectations of builds of 3.5 or more million barrels. My only question with enormous builds over the past few weeks, where do we store all this oil? If demand is down and we have a global glut that has us swimming in oil why is it so hard to retreat to $40 a barrel? Quite simply investors are trading of one headline versus the other headline. What is being left out of the big picture is even if there is an abundance of energy can you bring it to market STAT or ASAP. In the overnight electronic session the April Crude Oil is currently trading at 4871 which is 99 points higher. The trading range has been 4887 to 4832.
On the natural gas front investors and the market may have come to the conclusion that we are in shoulder season and the last bastion of winter has just sowed it’s weeds. Plenty of untapped product is waiting to emerge but not at these prices that are way too cheap and prices will not rebound unless we have a hot summer and pushing air-conditioners to the maximum. In the overnight electronic session the April contract is currently trading at 2.953 which is 1 ½ of a cent higher. The trading range has been 2.969 to 2.923.