It’s that time of year where the agricultural market’s focus will shift from South America to North America. This Thursday, March 29, the USDA will make two big announcements that will almost certainly cause the grain markets to have a big move – up or down. These reports are the Quarterly Grain Stocks and the Planting Intentions. Either report on its own can cause major moves and set the market tone in the coming weeks. This year I’m thinking there won’t be any conflicting news in these two reports to wash each other out where one is bullish, and one is bearish. In those kind of reports traders get whipped around as the market has big swings both ways. I’m expecting that both reports will confirm less corn and more beans. There’s no question in my mind that beans will take acres away from corn. If weather cooperates then we will see another record supply of soybeans on top of a record supply. Soy demand has been strong but not enough to outstrip the more than adequate supply. Soybeans above $10.20 is unsustainable in my humble opinion. A more likely value range is $9.80 to $9.50, if not closer to $9.00.

Corn has been steadily losing acres over the last several years and that eventually erodes the supply. Furthermore, prices have been low enough to compete for more of the global share and demand is likely to pick up pace. Early planting doesn’t look too promising at this time and delays are likely as far as I’m concerned. This adds up to corn going at least back to $4.20. Again, just my opinion…