Good morning!
Beans firmer, wheat and corn weaker to open the week... Soybean futures built on last week’s gains during overnight trade while wheat weakened and corn mildly favored the downside. As of 6:30 a.m. CT, corn futures are trading 1 to 2 cents lower, soybeans are 3 to 4 cents higher, winter wheat markets are 9 to 12 cents lower and spring wheat is 4 to 8 cents lower. The U.S. dollar index is around 500 points higher and front-month crude oil futures are around $1.20 lower.
Veterans Day schedule... Government offices are closed for the federal holiday but grain and livestock markets are open. We’ll have a full slate of Pro Farmer market reports throughout the day. Pro Farmer salutes all those who served this great country so we can enjoy freedom.
The week ahead in Washington... Congress returns on Tuesday for the lame-duck session with a focus on working on fiscal year 2025 funding. With the White House, Senate and a likely Republican-controlled House, GOP lawmakers plan to pass another continuing resolution to defer budget negotiations until March, enabling time for President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet confirmations and tax legislation moves. President Joe Biden will host Trump at the White House on Wednesday for their first post-election meeting, setting in motion the U.S. transition of power that will be completed in January. Trump will continue to announce key personnel decisions as he emphasized the need for immediate staffing, criticizing past delays. The economic focus will be consumer inflation data on Wednesday and Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech on Thursday. Due to today’s federal holiday, weekly export inspections and crop progress reports will be released on Tuesday and weekly export sales data will be pushed to Friday.
Brazil’s soybean planting two-thirds complete... Brazilian producers had planted 67% of estimated soybean area as of last Thursday, according to AgRural, up 13 percentage points for the week and six points ahead of year-ago. The firm said planting was in the final stretch in Mato Grosso and Paraná, the two largest production states. Corn planting advanced to 72%, four points behind last year.
APK-Inform keeps Ukraine’s grain production, export forecasts unchanged... Analyst APK-Inform kept its estimate of Ukraine’s grain production unchanged at 52.5 MMT. It expects Ukraine to export 37.3 MMT of grain in 2024-25, unchanged from its prior outlook but down sharply from around 51 MMT in 2023-24.
Indonesia may not import rice in 2025... Indonesia may not import rice in 2025, Zulkifli Hasan, a senior minister overseeing food affairs, said. While the country’s rice production is expected to fall 2.43% to 30.34 MMT, Zulkifli said that if imports were needed next year, it would likely be a small amount and some of this year’s import allocation that cannot be delivered would be carried over into next year. Indonesia aims to import 3.6 MMT of rice this year.
Montreal dockworkers’ union rejects offer, lockout begins... The Montreal Longshoremen’s Union rejected a final offer made for a new labor contract, leading to a lockout being declared, the Maritime Employers Association (MEA) and the union said on Sunday. The lockout at Canada’s second largest port will further slow Canadian imports and exports at a time the Port of Montreal was already operating at partial capacity and as West Coast ports are stopped due to a separate dispute.
China’s deflationary concerns persist... China’s consumer prices rose at the slowest pace in four months in October while producer price deflation deepened, despite stimulus efforts by Beijing. China’s consumer price index rose 0.3% from year-ago, the ninth straight month of consumer inflation but the lowest reading since June. Food prices increased 2.9%, driven by a 21.6% jump in fresh vegetables and a 14.2% rise on pork, though both moderated from the previous month. China’s producer prices fell 2.9% in October, the 25th consecutive month of producer deflation and the sharpest contraction since November 2023.
Chinese new yuan loans hit 15-year low in October... Chinese banks extended 500 billion yuan ($69.53 billion) in new loans in October, falling sharply from 1.59 trillion yuan in September and lower than expected, as increased policy stimulus to support the slumping economy fell short of boosting credit demand. That was the lowest amount of new loans for the month since 2009. New yuan loans totaled 16.52 trillion yuan for the first 10 months of the year. Total social financing was 1.400 billion yuan, down sharply from 37.6 trillion yuan in September. These figures translated to an outstanding loan growth of 7.8%, the lowest increase on record.
Canada detects first presumptive human H5 bird flu case... Canada has detected its first presumptive case of H5 bird flu in a person, a teenager in the western province of British Columbia, health officials said on Saturday. The teenager likely caught the virus from a bird or animal and was receiving care at a children’s hospital, the province said.
Cattle market correcting... Cattle futures posted a downside breakout from the bear flag formation on the daily chart last Friday, suggesting followthrough selling is likely. Wholesale beef prices continued to fall, dropping $1.53 for Choice to $307.93 and 53 cents for Select to $279.29, while cash cattle prices declined for a second straight week.
Cash hog index rally halted... The CME lean hog index dropped 18 cents to $90.43 as of Nov. 7, ending a 15-day string of gains. After a sharp drop on Thursday, the pork cutout firmed $4.42 on Friday to $102.38. December lean hog futures finished last Friday $10.005 below today’s cash index quote.
Weekend demand news... South Korea purchased 65,000 MT of feed wheat that can be sourced from the U.S., Australia, Canada, EU or Black Sea region. Bangladesh tendered to buy 50,000 MT of optional origin milling wheat.
See ‘Policy Updates’ for late-breaking morning news updates... For updates to items in “First Thing Today” or any late-breaking morning news stories, check “Policy Updates” on www.profarmer.com.
Today’s reports
· No reports scheduled. Gov’t offices closed for Veterans Day.