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presents WEEKLY COMMODITY HIGHLIGHTS

Nearby Futures	Weekly Change	Friday's Close	Year Ago
Corn	+.09	6.62¼	7.26½
Soybeans	-.21¾	14.75	13.50½
Wheat	-.38½	6.03¾	7.41
Cattle	+2.25½	115.38	118.40
Hogs	-5.7	79.8	90.6
Cotton	-.3.16	86.07	173.19
Milk	-.63	15.1	16.52
Crude Oil	-6.44	98.49	109.24

Comments: Last week played to mixed reviews for commodities. Corn futures traded mainly sideways while soybeans gave up some ground and wheat weakened noticeably. Good conditions, the rapid planting and ahead-of-normal development pressured crops. Acreage estimates for U.S. corn and beans from private forecasters were released ahead of this week’s USDA report and indicated we could see not only more corn acres than USDA’s 95.9-million plantings intentions indicated, but as much as two million additional soybean acres. However, strong basis attests to the fact that buyers are either unable to pry corn loose from storage, or it simply isn’t there. Meanwhile, China has been a strong buyer of both corn and soybeans, leading to the idea that this week’s reports may include increases in export sales for the old and new crops. Speculators built record-large net long positions in soybeans and near-record longs in soymeal. Livestock futures last week saw live cattle rebound when the concern over the BSE cow’s potential impact on demand faded. Hog prices continued to fall on weak wholesale pork prices. Likewise, cotton fell about 3 cents/lb. on lack of convincing world demand. Click on the Brock logo or call 1-800-558-3431 for more info on our services.