We started off the day with Corporate Profits QoQ (Q4) Export Sales GDP and Jobless Claims at 7:30 A.M., Fed Clarida Speech at 9:10 A.M., EIA Natural Gas Storage at 9:30 A.M., Kansas Fed Manufacturing Index (Mar) at 10:00 A.M., 4-Week and 8-Week Bill Auction at 10:30 A.M., 7-Year Note Auction at 12:00 P.M., and followed by the Hogs & Pigs report at 2:00 P.M.

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On the Corn front, the May corn settled 2 cents higher in yesterday’s action at 553 ¼. The news that South America is having problems with their second plantings also shows me that will trigger what the U.S. market can offer with little to no carryover to speak of in North or South America. The key will be watching weather and trigger importers to buy U.S. products again. This could be a round of more importers saying we want product as we saw these last months in 2020 and 2021. In the overnight electronic session, the May corn is starting out slowly with the market currently trading at 551 ½ which is 1 ¾ of a cent lower. The trading range has been 552 ½ to 550 ¾.

On the Ethanol front, again there were no trades in the market, but the April contract did have an artificial close to align itself between the corn, energy, and sugar markets. This close at 1.800 which was >001 higher or .0.06% higher tells me this market is ready to get some wings and wake up from a slumber. In the overnight electronic session, there were no trades or market posted and Open Interest is at 35 contracts basis April.

On the Crude Oil front, a lot of risk factor has come into play after a few years of commercial shipping was moving trade of whatever commodity but energy and crude without the U.S. or allies needing to totally monitor free trade. But the Suez Canal risk which had nothing to do with pirates or terrorist reminded traders of risk on and risk-off as we saw in the market yesterday. OPEC promised to keep production in place to keep the market in balance and the market is registering that now. There will be more risk that this market will absorb. In the overnight electronic session, the May crude is currently trading at 6010 which is 108 points lower. The trading range has been 6086 to 5965. With these swings it is risk on or off and not algorisms pushing the market.

On the Natural Gas front, we have the EIA Gas Storage data today and the Thomson Reuters poll with 17 analysts participating have withdrawals ranging from 41bcf to 16bcf with the median decrease of 25bcf. This compares to the one-year draw of 20bcf and the five-year average of 24bcf. With all the recent changes and troubles the energy sector has faced this is one sobering thought, if government will let them do what they do best, they will be more dependable than solar and wind power. In the overnight electronic session, the April natural gas is currently trading at 2.525 which is .007 higher. The trading range has been 2.528 to 2.490.