We start off the day with Challenger Job cuts (Aug) at 6:30 A.M., Export Sales, Initial Jobless Claims, Jobless Claims 4-Week Average, Continuing Jobless Claims, Trade Balance, and Unit Labour Cost  QoQ (Q2) at 7:30 A.M., Factory OrdersMoM (Jul) and Factory Orders ex Transportation (Jul) at 9:00 A.M., EIA Gas Storageand NY Fed Treasury Purchases 22.5 to 30 yrs. at 9:00 A.M., 4-Week & 8-Week Bill Auction at 10:30 A.M., and Total Vehicle Sales (Aug) at 7:00 P.M.

Image by Couleur from Pixabay

On the Corn front, we sank to a seven-week low as broken grain elevators and power outages continue to raise concerns about supplies and exports with no place to go. Boats and barges traffic are also a mess having to wait this out and they have no place to go. This could really hurt the world’s largest corn supplier with two-thirds of grain exports go through the New Orleans area. Also, the flow of crops go down the Mighty Mississippi and fertilizer goes up is disrupted. If this lingers we will have an even bigger problem on our hands. Funds continue their long liquidation as Ida is not sparing any industry and causing margin calls along the deadly path. In the overnight electronic session the December corn is currently trading at 521 which is 1 ¾ of a cent lower. The trading range has been 523 to 516 ¾.

On the Ethanol front, EIA says production dropped to a six-month low and stocks to an eleven-week low. EIA also showed production tumbled 28,000 barrels per day (bpd) or 3% in the week reviewed from 905,000 bpd sinking 162,000 since the downtrend began in July. Total ethanol inventories declined 113,000 (bbl) to an eleven-week low of 21.110 million bbl, sliding 30,000 bpd. Blending held the four-week average of 926,000 bpd, 7.5% above last year. The futures are still showing zero activity.

On the Crude front, oil inches up as OPEC+ unity is calming market fears. The crude draw of 7.2M barrels helped the market gather it’s feet. Next weeks data should show huge draws with refineries down. In the overnight electronic session the October crude oil is currently trading at 6884 which is 25 points higher. The trading range has been 6906 to 6784.

On the Natural Gas front the market was rolling yesterday trading sharply higher after demand destruction fears were quelled and the market is rangebound this morning ahead of the EIA Natural gas Storage report. In the overnight electronic session the October contract is currently trading at 4.615 which is unchanged. The trading range has been 4.679 to 4.577. the WSJ natural gas survey with 13, analysts, brokers and traders polled estimate builds ranging from 19 bcf to 33 bcf with the median injection of 25 bcf. This compares to the one-year increase of 36 bcf and the five-year average of 53 bcf.