We kicked off the day Fed Waller Speech at 3:00 A.M., Chicago Fed National Activity Index, Current Account, Initial Jobless Claims, Jobless Claims 4-Week Average, and Continuing Jobless Claims at 7:30 A.M., Fed Bowman Speech at 8:55 A.M., Fed Chair Powell Testimony, Fed Mester Speech, Existing Home Sales, Existing Home Sales MoM, and CB Leading Indicators MoM at 9:00 A.M., EIA Natural Gas Storage at 9:30 A.M., EIA Energy Stocks at 10:00 A.M., 4-Week & 8-Week Bill Auction at 10:30 A.M., 15-Year & 30_Year Mortgage Rate at 11:00 A.M., 5-Year TIPS Auction at 12:00 P.M., Dairy Products Sales at 2:00 P.M., and Fed Barkin Speech at 3:30 P.M.

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On the Corn Front talk of higher temperatures and moisture was enough to make traders take some profits. There are also traders trying to pick top. I do not believe the rains will have enough saturation to the soil where is most needed and I do not believe there will be enough precipitation to make a difference for this round. Because we had early plantings the timetable for pollination is mid-July give or take a tad earlier or later. And with no saturating moisture to speak of yields will plummet, with already farmers talking, “forget about it,” for a bumper crop. Soil moisture is critical and over 60% of the US crop growing areas from cotton, sorghum and many other commodities are fearful of what their crop may produce. Spotty showers in pockets of Iowa, Illinois, and Eastern Midwest just won’t cut it at this juncture. And we have a new threat that has farmers and traders talking about, with extreme heat confined to Texas and Oklahoma, but max readings in the mid-to-upper 80’s and 90’s will be common in Eastern Kansas and Missouri, Eastern Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana into July 1^st. Water will be a premium for plant life and animal life. In the overnight electronic session the July corn is currently trading at 664 which is 7 cents lower. The trading range has been 670 ¼ to 662 ¾.

On the Ethanol Front the talk of corn shortages on expected product, pricing of the cash market for corn for ethanol use is in play as well. Farmers have that being another concern and ethanol plants want to keep their profit margins in the positive zone it has been realizing for months. Government wrangling mandates and regulations is only forcing the two sides that are most important apart. The appointed politicians have no right to dictate policy as they were working on a environmental restoration. The group headed by the EPA personnel along with works for Environmental Restoration LLC, caused the release of toxic water in the Animas River watershed. 3 million gallons of contaminated water was released from the Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado released contaminated water from the mine to the Animas River in Southwest Colorado. The spill sent heavy metals, arsenic, and other contaminates into a waterway that flows into the San Juan National Forest. The EPA initially said 1 million gallons of waste water was released but that figure grew exponentially. I hate to go off the rails, but how long did it take the EPA to respond to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio? The record speaks for itself and there are many more EPA debacles that should be mentioned. The markets wait for no one. The reaction to the Biden Administration’s new biofuels and ethanol decision has Iowa’s political leaders and ethanol industry executives “extremely disappointed” on a federal decision on minimum biofuels blending. There were no trades or open interest in ethanol futures.

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