Weekly Market Update 2/23/23

Here is your weekly market update from the Garden City Co-op Grain Origination Team.

Trivia

1. What is the birth stone for February?

2. Under what name was the soft drink Pepsi originally introduced?

​Answers at the bottom.

Market News​

• Markets are charging lower this week with a lack of big market-moving headlines, except for today's fresh, mostly bearish, USDA estimates out of the Ag Forum. Markets are also feeling technical pressure as we near month-end and first notice day for March futures and additional pressure from outside markets.

• ​Export sales are delayed until tomorrow due to the holiday. Export inspections this week were lackluster across the board. Corn saw 24.5 million bushels shipped, soybeans with 58 million bushels, milo with 2.8 million bushels, and wheat with 13.7 million bushels. All falling within trade estimates. Corn and milo remain behind USDA projections and need a beefed up export pace to catch up. Mexico remained the top destination for corn followed by Japan. Milo saw China take the lion’s share. Soybeans and wheat are ahead of USDA projections for the current year. China was the top destination for beans and wheat. Currently soybeans are ahead of last year’s pace.

• Stock markets drifted higher today in a back-and-forth session, as Wall street looked to rebound from four consecutive days of declines for the S&P 500. A batch of economic data hit traders' desks early Thursday. The government's second estimate of fourth-quarter GDP was downwardly revised to 2.7% compared to 2.9% reported last month, reflecting weaker consumer spending and higher inflation figures in the final three months of 2022. Meanwhile, filings for unemployment insurance fell last week to 192,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected jobless claims to come in at 200,000. The market continues to waver with uncertainty over Federal Reserve policy and worries over the possiblity of a recession.

• Russia President Vladimir Putin threatened the West with a nuclear test in a speech Tuesday morning, stating Russia will resume nuclear testing and allow nuclear systems to be prepared for combat. Putin says Russia is “suspending its participation” in New START, the last remaining nuclear weapons treaty between the U.S. and Russia.  Signed by then-U.S President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, the treaty was due to expire in 2026. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Putin’s move “deeply unfortunate and irresponsible.”  NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said it made the world a more dangerous place and urged Putin to reconsider.

• ​USDA released its Grain and Oilseeds Outlook at the opening of its annual Outlook Forum this morning in Arlington, VA. This is USDA's early forecast of production, use, stocks and prices for crops in the 2023-24 year. U.S. farmers are forecasted to plant 91 million acres of corn, up 2.4 million acres from last year, and produce a 15-billion-bushel crop while soybean acres will hold steady at 87.5 million acres and produce 4.5 billion bushels. U.S. wheat production is projected to increase 14% for 2023-24 to 1.887 billion bushels on both higher acreage and yield. Total wheat planted acre is projected at 49.5 million acres, up nearly 3.8 million acres from the 2022-23 crop, and the highest since 2016-17.

• ​Thank you to everyone who attended our Grain Market Meetings last week! We enjoyed the opportunity to see and visit with so many of you. We hope the information presented was relevant and valuable for your farms! 

Weather

Cooler temperatures for the end of this week with highs in the 30s and 40s. However the beginning of next week we have highs in the mid-50s and 60s with lows in the 20s. I think we are all longing for spring to come and settle in. It's still a little chilly with no chance of precipitation in the 10 day, 15-20 MPH winds to be expected at the beginning of next week.

Trivia Answers

1. Amethyst

2. Brad's Drink

We will not have a weekly commentary published next Thursday, March 2nd. The commentary will be back to making its normal appearance on Thursday, March 9th.