Grains Trading Heavy Heading into Report
Today we have Wholesale Trade at 7:30 A.M., Crop Production and USDA Supply/Demand at 11; 00 A.M. and API Energy Stocks at 3:30 P.M. The Grains seem to be pricing in a bearish report today. News from the farm seems to dictate overall the farmers are ahead of schedule even with this shaky weather this spring. Never underestimate the U.S. farmer and the market seem to be betting on the same. In the overnight electronic session the July Corn is currently trading at 368 ¼, which is ¾ of a cent lower. The trading range has been 370 ½ to 368 so far. It should be interesting after 11:00 after the data is released.
On the Ethanol front there were no trades posted in the overnight electronic session. The June contract settled at 1.496 and is currently showing 1 bid @ 1.491 and 2 offers @ 1.515. This market will be closely monitoring the results of the Grain report and API Energy report.
On the Crude Oil front the market is still attempting to shake off what is in the future after the Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi was fired and we have wild fires in the Canadian Sands and whatever drama you can fundamentally throw at this market with rig counts down and demand not dropping. We will eventually have a shortfall. In the overnight electronic session the June Crude is currently trading at 4342 which is 2 tics lower. The trading range has been 4398 to 4303 so far. I expect this market to close higher on the day.
On the Natural Gas front the market is showing strength this morning currently trading at 2.138, which is 4 cents higher. The trading range has been 2.149 to 2.091. This market is poised for a bull run in the long term with declining rig counts and infrastructure that when Mother Nature surprises us we will wonder why we can get it out of the ground.