We start off the morning with MBA Mortgage Applications (29/JAN) and MBA 30-Year Mortgage Rate ((29/JAN) at 6:00 A.M., ADP Employment Change (JAN) at 7:15 A.M., Market Composite PMI Final (JAN), and Market Services PMI Final (JAN) at 8:45 A.M., ISM Non-Manufacturing Index at 9:00 A.M., EIA Energy Stocks at 9:30 A.M., 105-Day and 154-Day Bill Auction at 10:30 A.M., Fed Bullard Speech at 12:00 P.M., Fed Harker Speech at 1:00 P.M., Dairy Product Sales at 2:00 P.M., Fed Mester Speech and Fed Evans Speech at 4:00 P.M., Fed Kaplan Speech at 5:05 A.M. and Total Vehicle Sales at 6:00 P.M.

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On the Corn front, the market traded lower mainly because China has been a little quiet in this arena with new purchases after being so busy buying U.S. corn last week. South America is still having weather problems and the U.S. cash market is showing a tightening of stocks. There are still expectations that there will be new highs to come as the market most likely could see more profit raking before tomorrow’s Export Sales and next Tuesday’s USDA data. In the overnight electronic session, the March corn is currently trading at 538 ¼ which is 4 ¾ cents lower. The trading range has been 544 ¼ to 536 ½.

On the Ethanol front, today is the Last Trading Day for the February contract. The EIA report is expected to show ethanol production down slightly from last week and small builds in stocks. We are hearing whispers that China is pricing the U.S. ethanol market which is a sign they may step in with more purchases while traders are questioning…. At what type of volumes? There were no trades posted in the overnight electronic session. The April contract settled at 1.749 and is currently showing 1 bid @ 1.501 and 2 offers @ 1.749 with Open Interest at 41 contracts.

On the Crude Oil front, the new administrations go green dream is quickly becoming a nightmare for consumers at the pump and it is expected to get worse. Traders and producers and oil companies expect history to repeat itself, and if the new proclamations go unchallenged, we could seek new all-time highs in a rather short period of time. Last night’s API numbers showed withdrawals across the board with crude oil -4.261M, Cushing –1.885M, gasoline -0.240M and distillates -1.622M. In the overnight electronic session, the March crude oil is currently trading at 5512 which is 36 points higher. The trading range has been 5525 to 5481.

On the Natural Gas front, the market rallied big again early in yesterday’s trading session only to erase the gains as European weather modules backed off on how long the Arctic blast is going to last in the lower 48. We should see prices go higher again, while news sources have reported that natural gas consumers in certain parts of the U.S. cannot believe the sudden spike in their natural gas bills. I believe the weather and new energy policies being brought to the consumer and producers alike is a big culprit. In the overnight electronic session, the March natural gas is currently trading at 2.835 which is 1 cent lower. The trading range has been 2.894 to 2.805.