In the overnight electronic session, the grains are in the green recovering from yesterdays headlines that said the U.S.-China trade talks were not moving as fast that we thought. Today we have a new headline that China corn stocks will be fully digested in 2019. Ministry official Tang Ke told reporters that sales will continue at a fast pace this year. This is a sign that the U.S. export market for corn and ethanol should rise dramatically while Argentina and Brazil are having weather problems in their growing season. In the overnight electronic session, the March Corn is currently trading at 373 ½ which is 2 ¼ cents higher. The trading range has been 374 ¾ to 372 ½.
On the ethanol front, the February contract is currently trading at 1.282 which is .010 higher. The trading range has been 1.292 to 1.282. 4 contracts traded and Open Interest has risen to 1,813 contracts. The market is currently showing 1 bid at 1.280 and 1 offer at 1.283.
On the crude oil front the API data last night showed crude stocks down by .0796M, Cushing down .0796M while products showed builds with gasoline up 5.991M and Distillates up 3.214M. The market took a while to digest the information and in the overnight electronic session, the February crude oil is currently trading at 5177 which is 34 points lower. The trading range has been 5252 to 5146. I do expect a higher close in today’s trading session.
On the natural gas front, the market is pricing in the weekend snow. In the overnight electronic session, the February contract is currently trading at 3.676 which is 17 ½ cents higher. The trading range has been 3.696 to 3.377.