Corn, Wheat Give Up Gains

From Arlan at Farm Futures:

After a day of trying to trade fundaments, grain prices were once again looking over their shoulders to outside markets on Wednesday. What they saw wasn’t particularly helpful.

Traders continue to debate Tuesday’s acreage estimates. Further analysis of Farm Futures planting intentions survey data showed farmers who responded during the first week of March committing to planting corn, as USDA reported. However those who answered during the second week of March, when December futures failed to reach break-even levels, said they intended to plant much less corn. That suggests that final acreage intentions remain volatile, with weather and finances keeping some producers undecided until the last possible moment.

Nonetheless, today’s action could be signal prices are trying to following the typical seasonal pattern for a normal year, when December futures puts in a short-term top soon after the plantings report.

This is an interesting seasonal aspect to trading grains that I was previously unaware of.