It was a bad week in grain market news.
A forecast for widespread and substantial rain in the United States winter wheat belt for March 18-19 dropped wheat futures early this week, more than wiping out the previous week’s gains.
The Western Producer’s press deadline of March 13 precluded the gathering of information on how much the forecast would affect prices and indeed whether the rain would materialize. A forecast for rain last week was wrong.
A U.S. Department of Agriculture report March 10 confirmed large soybean and corn ending stocks in the U.S., keeping those markets in a bearish mood. And private analysts have started to put out U.S. seeding intentions forecasts. Many think soy acres will rise and corn drop, adding to the poor outlook for new-crop oilseed prices.
Add to that bird flu’s depressing effect on global feed demand and a third case of BSE in the U.S. and it was time to stop reading the market wires and do something less depressing.
