Corn: May corn closed 11 cents higher at $6.60 1/2, near the sessions high, gaining 17 1/2 cents on the week. New-crop December futures closed 1/2 cent lower at $5.66 1/2. Old-crop corn futures surged following USDA’s Quarterly Grain Stocks report.
Soybeans: May soybeans rallied 31 cents to 15.05 1/2, ending the session above the 40-day moving average and gaining 77 1/4 cents on the week. May meal rose $6.10 to $466.00, a $20.90 gain from a week-ago, while May soyoil rose 112 points to 55.49 cents, a 222-point gain on the week. Soybeans found pre-report strength from reports of poor yields and quality issues as soybean harvest efforts commence in Argentina, albeit sluggishly.
Wheat: May SRW wheat futures closed steady at $6.92 1/4 and near mid-range. For the week, May SRW rose 3 3/4 cents. May HRW wheat gained 6 1/4 cents at $8.77 3/4, near mid-range and seeing a technically bullish weekly and monthly high close today. For the week, May HRW rose 29 3/4 cents. May spring wheat rose 16 1/4 $8.96. The wheat futures markets today saw neutral to slightly bearish data coming from USDA, but solid gains in corn and soybean futures limited selling interest in wheat.
Cotton: May cotton fell 72 points to 82.78 cents but gained 458 points on the week. Cotton futures mildly reacted to USDA’s Prospective Planting data, which showed estimated acres at 11.256 million, slightly above the average pre-report estimate of 11.212 million acres, but still 2.5 million acres less than a year ago.
Cattle: Nearby April live cattle futures ended Friday at $168.35, up 80 cents from Thursday. June cattle futures climbed $1.125 to $162.125. That represented a weekly surge of $5.525. May feeder futures closed at $205.25, up 80 cents on the day and $7.70 on the week. Cash cattle prices are finishing this week sharply higher than the modest gain posted last week.
Hogs: June lean hog futures rose 2 1/2 cents to $91.625 and near mid-range. For the week, June hogs gained 20 cents. The last half of this week the lean hog futures market spent in a pause mode, as the bulls try to recover from the late-March price downdraft.