In the overnight session, the grains traded higher with corn up 5 1/2 cents, soybeans up 3 3/4 cents and wheat up 9 cents by the pause of trade this morning. The U.S. dollar is up only a fraction of a percent and crude oil is down 71 cents. All traders in long July grain contracts will need to liquidate or roll their positions by the close of trade today with Tuesday the 30th being First Notice. Tuesday the 30th also marks the release of two major USDA reports including the Planted Acreage report and the Quarterly Grain Stocks report.
In a Reuter’s poll of analysts the average analyst guess for the quarterly grain stocks is 718 million bushels for wheat, 4.555 billion bushels of corn and 670 million bushels of soybeans. This would be a draw down in grain stocks from 1.124 billion bushels of wheat, 7.745 billion bushels of corn and 1.334 billion bushels of soybeans reported on March 1st. The Quarterly Grain Stocks report will be released at 11 AM CST tomorrow.
Weather this week is expected to bring cooler than normal conditions to the Midwest and leave the northwest significantly hotter than normal. Rains are expected to pass through the Midwest leaving Illinois, Indiana Michigan and Ohio with more precipitation than normal this week while North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas expect drier weather.
