In the News

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WEEKLY COMMODITY HIGHLIGHTS

Nearby Futures	Weekly Change	Friday's Close	Year Ago
Corn	-0.1125	3.5625	3.7000
Soybeans	-0.2425	9.7575	9.1050
Wheat	-0.1150	4.2475	4.6300
Cattle	+2.77	122.10	135.85
Hogs	-1.77	67.28	69.63
Cotton	-0.89	77.47	57.72
Milk	+0.09	15.82	13.77
Crude Oil	-1.16	48.15	39.46

It was a bad week for bulls in the grain and soybean complex, as prices fell on comfortable world supplies, speculative selling and a lack of crop threats around the world. Both corn and winter wheat futures fell to their lowest levels in nearly 3 months, in the process posting outside weeks lower on their weekly charts. The fundamental pressure for wheat came from weather forecasts calling for a wetter pattern in hard red winter wheat country, which should provide significant relief to this dry region. The wet pattern is expected to extend into early April. The Corn Belt will also see this wet pattern, and while it could cause slow early planting, in the big picture it should help crops as soil moisture gets a boost. Soybeans tumbled late in the week on speculative selling, hitting a four-month low. Harvest weather in South America is mostly favorable and a huge crop is coming out of Brazil. Cotton futures were dow n on the week and the old crop/new crop spread weakened, but December futures remain near their recent contract high.

It was an eventful week for the livestock complex as well, as live cattle futures surged on robust packer margins, stronger cash trade and futures' discount to cash. Friday's Cattle on Feed report was neutral versus market expectations. Lean hog futures were down on the week amid volatile price action. Although the market impact on futures was unclear, the big event in the livestock complex was in Brazil, after authorities raided major meatpacking facilities in an investigation about tainted meat exports. The investigation has caused beef exports from this major world supplier to evaporate, and major meatpacker JBS closed operations for three days due to lack of demand. Various countries around the world have restricted meat imports from the country.

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