Headlines:

  • Fears of another US hurricane send cotton futures limit up
    Just when cotton growers thought it was safe to return to the fields, along comes another hurricane threat. With much of Texas and the Mississippi Delta region still recovering from the inundations brought by Hurricane Harvey, and its remnants, another storm, in the form of Hurricane Irma, is bleeping on the radar for parts of the US cotton belt. The reaction in New York was to send cotton futures up the exchange limit. “Hurricane Irma remains the big weather story of the week,” according to reports. “The track that the storm will take remains to be seen, but the strength of the storm looks impressive,” with Irma now rated a category 5 hurricane. “Hurricane Irma is currently forecast to affect the South East next week,” said weather service MDA.  “But the situation will need to be monitored for any westward adjustment,” which might take it into more significant areas for growing cotton and other crops.
  • Crude prices rebound, gasoline slides as U.S. refineries restart
    Crude oil prices rose and gasoline fell by about 3 percent on Tuesday as the gradual restart of refineries in the U.S. Gulf that were shut by Hurricane Harvey raised demand for crude and eased fears of a fuel supply crunch. Texas was edging towards recovery from the devastation of Harvey that hit its coast late on Aug. 25, as shipping channels, oil pipelines and refineries restarted some operations. At its peak, the hurricane knocked out almost a quarter of all U.S. refining capacity. On Tuesday, sources said Motiva Enterprises could begin restarting the 603,000 barrels per day (bpd) Port Arthur refinery, the nation’s largest, this week. Crude oil infrastructure was also still recovering from the storm. Mexico’s Pemex said on Tuesday that the storm forced the cancellation of several crude oil export shipments.

Summary:

Both December Corn and Wheat were only marginally higher on the day. Wheat walked up into our time cycle of September 5th and it may have posted an interim high for at least the next few says. It also walked right up to resistance near 450 making an intraday high of 446.75 then proceeded to finish the day near the low end of the day’s trading range. December Corn was up 2.25 cents on the day and it too was finished well off its intraday highs. November Beans on the other hand was sharply higher posting double-digit gains of 19.25 cents. Crude Oil futures were also sharply higher from lingering distribution interruptions from Hurricane Harvey and from new concern over Hurricane Irma that has been ungraded to a Category 5 storm.

The USDA announced new export sales from private exporters today. They reported 143,650 metric tons of Corn for delivery to Mexico for the 2017-18 marketing year and 136,000 metric tons of Soybean for delivery to China for the 2017-18 marketing year.