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WEEKLY COMMODITY HIGHLIGHTS

Nearby Futures	Weekly Change	Friday's Close	Year Ago
Corn	-.1050	3.4575	3.6550
Soybeans	-.4775	9.8900	8.8175
Wheat	-0.1575	3.9350	4.6950
Cattle	2.25	114.58	128.60
Hogs	-1.50	63.20	57.77
Cotton	-1.17	69.87	62.77
Milk	0.06	17.38	14.53
Crude Oil	0.07	53.02	37.50

Last week was a rough one for grain and soybean futures as better-than-expected rains in some of the driest parts of Argentina's main crop belt helped trigger active speculative long liquidation in soybean futures and fresh selling in the corn market. The soybean market was hit hardest with nearby soybean futures suffering their worst weekly decline since mid-June. The continuation of near-ideal growing weather over much of Brazil also weighed on soybeans along with concerns about U.S. relations with China. In the corn market, the improvement in Argentina's moisture situation added to pressure from ample U.S. supplies and pushed futures back from key areas of chart resistance following a demand-driven rally in early December. Wheat futures also remained under heavy pressure from burdensome U.S./world supplies and a strong dollar, which eroded U.S. competitiveness in the export market along with the influx of supplie s from large Southern Hemisphere wheat crops into the market.
In the livestock complex, live cattle futures had another strong week, surging on support from higher cash cattle/wholesale beef prices and unexpectedly strong pre-holiday sales in cash markets. Futures did set back under pressure from larger-than-expected November feedlot placements on Friday, but overall, USDA's monthly Cattle-on-Feed report was neutral for the market as November feedlot marketings were also large. Lean hog futures drifted lower last week under pressure from speculative profit taking spurred by technically-overbought market conditions and pre-holiday position evening. USDA also had a bearish surprise for the market on Friday as its quarterly Hogs and Pigs report pegged the U.S. hog herd 3.7% above a year earlier, comfortably above the range of trade estimates and put the market hog inventory 4% above a year earlier, compared with the average trade forecast of a 2% increase.
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