In the News

The next issue will feature Salutes to NAMA AgBusiness Leader of the year Michael Stern, The Climate Corp and Agri-Marketer of Year Greg Nickerson, Bader Rutter. Plus the annual listing of largest ag agencies. To schedule your ad contact AudreyE@AgriMarketing.com.

WEEKLY COMMODITY HIGHLIGHTS

Nearby Futures	Weekly Change	Friday's Close	Year Ago
Corn	0.0000	3.6175	3.8525
Soybeans	-0.0900	9.5400	10.6450
Wheat	-0.0250	4.2500	4.5850
Cattle	-3.13	125.18	122.575
Hogs	+2.50	71.90	76.93
Cotton	+4.41	82.18	60.73
Milk	+0.01	15.59	12.73
Crude Oil	+1.68	47.90	46.70

Another lackluster week for corn and soybean futures, which came under pressure from abundant world supplies and improved weather in the U.S. Midwest. Corn ended right around unchanged on the week, getting no support from the monthly USDA Supply and Demand report. For each of the last 36 weeks, December corn has remarkably ended each Friday within a 25-cent range. Soybean futures could not sustain a rally in the wake of the USDA report, which projected soybean carryout for 2017-18 at 480 million bushels. While this was significantly lower than expected, it is still a large amount and not bullish in the long-term. The USDA report was bullish for wheat on the domestic side, but the world carryout outlook for 2017-18 remains quite bearish, and futures sagged amid a lack of bullish supply news around the world. The bullish moves in the ag complex were in cotton and rice. Cotton soared to its highest level in nearly thre e years on a spot-month basis, as July rocketed higher amid a short squeeze, although new-crop December futures actually ended lower on the week. Rice futures also soared, hitting a six-month high on concerns about the Arkansas crop and news of potential export sales to Iraq.

As dull as the grain markets have been, the livestock complex continues to see plenty of fireworks. Nearby live cattle futures were down sharply on the week amid sharply lower cash trade, but deferred contracts showed some strength in volatile trade, aided by news of a U.S.-China trade agreement that will open up U.S. beef exports as well as futures' large discount to cash. Lean hog futures surged early in the week to multi-week highs on continued strength in the cash market, but futures ran out of gas at mid-week. A strong seasonal trend for the cash market, along with expanded U.S. slaughter capacity and solid exports are bullish market factors for hogs.

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