Headlines:
- NOPA Crush will be released Monday, May 16th at Noon EST
- Weekly crop progress will be released today at 4:00PM EST
- Housing Starts data will be released tomorrow morning
- Sugar shrugs off record UNICA crushing figures
This afternoon Brazilian industry group UNICA flagged record sugarcane harvest results for center-south mills in the second half of April 2016. As the 2016/17 season harvest ramps up, the group flagged strong set of crushing results for the two-week period. However, judging by the positive response from traders in today’s session, the market was largely expecting it.
Summary:
Soybean futures picked up from where it left off the last few days of the week. Today’s trading range posted a lower high and lower low. The July contract was down 2.75 cent and the November contract was off 1.50 cents. Friday’s CFTC report showed that funds remained net long Beans and Corn but they were not as heavy Corns as the previous week. They however were selling off Wheat. The USDA’s progress report is expected to should that about 75% of domestic Corn is planted. Bean plantings are expected to be about 40% complete. Spring Wheat is looking to be about 90% complete. July Corn and December Corn closed in positive territory the exact same amount as their Soybean counter parts closed down at 2.75 and 1.50 respectively. July Wheat was down 1.50 cents.
Strike in Argentina’s largest port of Risario that started on Friday was short lived. It ended today after the government was able to get the CGT union and company officials to resume with 2 weeks of wage negotiations. The ports are back up and running but the CGT union warned that if the wage talks are unsuccessful the union will resume their strike.
Goldman Sachs who has been a consummate Crude Oil market bear for the past year recently changed its tuned raising its short term outlook for Crude futures prices. The EIA report on Wednesday was bullish for the Oil sector. According to Goldman, the oil market has gone from nearing storage saturation to being in deficit much earlier than expected. Production outages in Nigeria and Canada have played a major role is hold prices steady recently keeping prices from declining further during its potential cycle top window. It is worth noting that while Goldman was still predicting potential further declines in oil prices, speculators were raising their bullish bets on both U.S. crude and Brent throughout February, March and April. If history repeats a near term top is perhaps at hand. Crude Oil was up on the news and was only 2 cents shy of reaching 48 intraday.
