We kicked off the day with Exports Sales at 7:30 A.M., ISM Manufacturing PMI, ISM Manufacturing Employment, ISM Manufacturing New Orders, and ISM Manufacturing Prices at 9:00 A.M., EIA Natural Gas Storage at 9:30 A.M., Fed Barkin Speech at 10:00 A.M., Baker Hughes Oil & Total Rig Counts at 12:00 P.M., and Total Vehicle Sales.

Ag Resources (ARC) Marketing Fills for Thursday : 1/Soybean Producers; Sold 10% of the estimated 22025 soybean crop at $10.32 basis November soybean futures and ARC advice for today is to sell 10% of the 2024 soybean crop at $10.19 basis March soybean futures for nearby cash delivery.

Photo by Jesse Gardner on Unsplash

The Mortgage Bankers Association’s weekly report showed rising home mortgage rates for another week.The weekly survey reflected an average contract interest rate for 30-year -fiixed – rate mortgages last week, up 0.8% to 6.97%. This marked the 3^rd consecutive week higher, with rates rising in 11 of the last 14 weeks. This was the highest mortgage rate since early July, reaching a 25-week high. The average rate was 0.21% higher than a year ago marking the 2^nd consecutive week-over-week increases. Not surprisingly, mortgage demand has collapsed as rates have increased.The mortgage index fell 13% for the week to 174.9, marking the 3^rd straight week lower, at a 44-week low.

CBOT Corn Falls and Forms Bearish Reversal:

CBOT corn futures settled slightly higher, with March futures testing key resistance above $4.60. New crop December corn paced the advance with daily gains of 2 ¾ cents. The new crop November/December corn spread closed at 2.31:1. ARC maintains that the world is awash in soybeans (record-large South American soybean crop). With US farmers pushed to plant an extra 2-4 Mil acres of corn in 2025. December 2025 corn futures will find considerable resistance above 4.50. Since the late summer bottom at 44.04 March corn futures, we have seen charts reflecting that managed money has secured over 500,000 contracts of corn with their net long position estimated at 194,000 contracts. Historically, a dire drought of a significant corn producer or large/ongoing Chinese imports is required to justify such length. ARC forecasts that China will import just 8-9 MMT’s of corn in 2024/25 vs. 23.4 MMT’s last year. China’s corn import absence is concerning because their domestic cash price is below the cost of production. Amis negative US ethanol margins, the slowing pace of US corn sales implies that a new demand driver is needed to push values higher beyond the Jan 10^th USDA crop report.

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