Headlines:                                                                                                     

  • The House of Representatives is set to vote on the tax bill this afternoon, with the Senate to follow tonight or tomorrow morning. If passed, it would be the first major tax reform in 30 years.
  • The CME Group bitcoin futures cleared 1,050 contracts on its first trading session yesterday. The Cryptocurrency was under pressure today in early trading.
  • January Futures options expire this Friday, December 22nd, which will also be an early close at 12:05pm CT. Markets are closed on Christmas and reopen Tuesday morning at 8:30am CT
  • Dairy prices tumble to 14-month low, amid signs of buoyant milk output
  • Canada lifts canola price hopes, despite harvest upgrade to record high

Summary:

The holiday volume slide is in full swing. Corn traded in a tight 2 cent range on the day finishing the day up ½ cent. It looks to remain sideways perhaps until the Christmas break has passed. Large short positions continue to dominate the landscape and traders are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to take advantage of a potential short covering rally. Soybeans continue to move down on technical weakness. Beans were down 5 ¾ to 6 ¼ cents across Jan to July contracts. The USDA reported 145k metric tons of Soybean for delivery during the 2018-19 marketing year from Private US exporters. Wheat futures were mixed intraday showing some strength in early trading but ended the day marginally lower from ½ to 1 ½ cent in losses across contracts through July. The US Dollar saw some weakness today and continued weakness in the Greenback could translate into to potential strength for Wheat. We anticipate the pre-holiday trade to remain light.

Corn export inspections totaled 23.8 million bushels last week which was on the low end of trade estimates and down from 28.3 million the prior week. Weekly Soybean export inspections came in at 65.4 million bushels which far surpassed the 51.4 million that was at the top end of trade estimates. The prior week’s estimate was at 45.3 million. Wheat export inspections were reported at 21.5 million bushels surpassing the top end of trade estimates at 16.5 million. Last year’s figure for the same period as 17.8 million.