Headlines:

  • North Korea has threatened to sink the US aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson as it heads towards the Korean Peninsula
  • FIRST NOTICE for May grain futures is Friday
  • Rabobank slashes soy price hopes on big US, South America crop prospects
    Rabobank slashed its price forecast for soybeans, citing ample crop in South America and expectations of record US sowings. The bank forecast soybean prices to average $9.30 a bushel in the last three months of 2017, compared to the $10.10 a bushel average forecast last month. November soybean futures are currently trading at around $9.60 a bushel, Rabobank cited “a larger-than-anticipated South American crop, together with a forecast larger US 2017 planted acreage,” weighing heavily on price expectations for the rest of the year. And Rabobank suggested that Chinese soybean buying could slow until the start of July, as buyers wait for a drop in the country’s agricultural import tariff, to 11 from 13%.

Summary:

The White House has been increasingly ramping up its rhetoric against Canadian trade practices yesterday with the President stating that Canada would be on the losing end of trade war disputes over dairy and lumber. At an agricultural roundtable discussion yesterday, Trump said, “Agriculture and rural prosperity in America, that’s what we want, and we don’t want to be taken advantage of by other countries – and that’s stopping, and stopping fast.” The President cited the dispute over exports of ultra-filtered milk to Canada while pointing to a decision to levy 20% countervailing duties as “a very big tariff” on softwood lumber from Canada. He went on to say that, “People don’t realize Canada has been very rough on the United States. We’re going to take care of our dairy farmers in Wisconsin and upstate New York and a lot of other places.” At the roundtable, President Trump signed an executive order implementing a 180-day review of regulations and laws that hamper the agriculture sector and swore in the new Agriculture Secretary, Sonny Perdue. In his speech to the round table, Secretary Perdue stated that “Trade is going to be at the top of our agenda.”.

On the onset of trading today, rain forecast worked to push the price of grain and oilseed markets higher. The ideology circulating around the trade suggest that for corn planting, there is too much rain and for wheat there is too much cold and too much rain. The thought is that some yield loss is possible due to this wet weather for both corn and wheat which would translated into planting delays. However, the 2nd half of the trading day proved to be unfavorable with all three markets finishing closer to the lower end of the day’s trading range.