No News Selloff Yesterday
We hope to have a Turnaround Tuesday after yesterday’s washout in the markets with no major news except investors and traders suffering the effects of jetlag for losing an hour and attending early St. Patrick’s Day parades. We kickoff the morning with CPI and Real Earnings at 7:30 A.M. followed by weekly API Energy Stocks at 3:30 P.M. All March Grains expire tomorrow so today is pretty much your last chance to rollover or liquidate to avoid any squeeze play.
On the Corn front the May contract is currently trading at 391 ¾ which is 1 cent higher. The trading range has been 392 ¼ to 389 ¾. Funds have adopted a more bullish Corn stance since mid-2016 reported by Karen Braun with Thomson Reuters. With shortages expected in this crop and expectations of more U.S. exports to continue this market may be out of years of being in a rut.
On the Ethanol front there were no trades posted in the overnight electronic session. The April contract settled at 1.512 and is currently showing 2 bids at 1.518 and 2 offers at 1.522 with Open Interest dropping to 1,098 contracts.
On the Crude Oil front breaking news that Iran may step up production to pay bills that they owe other countries, however, they are talking 600 thousand barrels by 2021. This hardly breaking news in the and will not produce a glut now in this current market. At 3:30 P.M. we have the weekly API data that should again prove there is no changing in the guard and prove supplies are down. In the overnight electronic session the April contract is currently trading at 6094 which is 42 points lower. The trading range has been 6169 to 6080. We are also beginning rollovers from the April contract to deferred as the contract heads into expectation next week.
On the Natural Gas front the April contract is currently trading at 2.803 which is 2 ½ cents higher. The trading range has been 2.811 to 2.781. We should be seeing warmer temperatures shortly and after the east coast gets dug out of the last Nor’easter we should see Natural Gas prices tumble.