Weekly grain report

Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse.

11/23/11: Thank goodness the week is over. Well, technically there’s a short futures session on Friday but there won’t be anyone around to trade it. Gloomy economic news here, in Europe, and overnight in China continues to dominate the markets. Manufacturing gauges in China came in poorer than expected overnight, adding to the negative feelings today.

11/28/11: There wasn’t any additional bad news out of Europe over the long weekend and the financial markets also liked the reports of large Black Friday sales as the week gets started. Grains rallied as the dollar dropped, but both retraced portions of their moves by the close of trading. White wheat prices were unchanged from last Wednesday. Wheat had a good export sales report with a strong showing for white wheat at 8.8 million bushels. Korea was 5 million of that, which is unusually large for them. Maybe they’re going to use it for feed or something, China and Indonesia also showed up on the report.

11/29/11: The short covering bounce finally happened today as Chicago wheat futures climbed 23 cents and white wheat gained 12. There wasn’t any specific grain news that sparked it, but a lower value of the dollar and positive financial markets helped generate the push. Japan is in on Wednesday night for a million bushels of western white wheat, their first purchase in three weeks.