Weekly Cash Comments

谷物市场本周发现波动率提高with corn futures posting gains while soybeans traded lower. In the cash market, basis for both corn and soybeans were unchanged on average across the country this week, but that masks a fair amount of movement by end users and exporters.

For corn, ethanol users backed off on bids by a penny a bushel this week, but there are signs that more weakness could be in store for the ethanol sector. In Iowa, spot ethanol prices tumbled 32 cents a gallon to reach $1.68 a gallon. At the start of December, ethanol prices were as high as $2.42 a gallon. So far, ethanol production continues to exceed last year’s tally at this time of year but that should change as current margin are now a $1 a bushel lower than the same time last year. On the export front, sales have been pace to reach USDA’s export target for their year but recent approval by China to accept Syngenta’s MIR 162 variety may give a slight boost there for corn & DDG exports. Basis levels at river terminals were up 2 cents on average thanks to some weakness in barge rates.

In soybeans, the Gulf export market was off 9 cents on basis for the week which triggered some weakness at river terminals even with falling barge rates. On average, river terminals were off 4 cents a bushel. At soybean plants, basis levels were off 2 cents a bushel.

—Cody Bills