Welcome into the Friday, February two, 2024 installment of Market Plus.

Seeing his Shadow today, Chris Robinson.

Or did you not see your shadow?

I did not leave the house.

Still waiting for him to come here.

That's right.

You came here in a week where most of the things I've read in your newsletter this week were all it was.

You just made one motion.

Everything was trending lower.

Is there something that you feel more confident about trending up sooner than later?

Any of the wheat, corn, beans.

Or I mean, soybeans, probably especially new crop, they're in a relatively good position.

You know, they're eight month lows, though, not at three year lows even.

That's the spot month.

New crop is an eight month lows.

But it's again, it's not like corn.

You know, the contract low.

So and I was saying earlier that, you know, even with soybeans, you know, around $12 or a little bit less than $12.

Guys are still making money.

The real key this year, I can remember between 2012 and 2017, everybody knew that we needed 430 corn for 30 corn.

And a couple of years we got there for literally about two days and then we were gone.

So we're going to find out what that number is, I think kind of retroactively this year if we get to some level and you see a lot of a lot of sell pressure come coming now, then you'll know what that lever is.

So if that.

Holds.

That's the start.

We got to hold that level first.

Okay, Hold and pry.

We're going to get to a couple of things like that.

Good job teasing that you might be a future in television.

Keep this up, Chris.

Let's start with Eric in Ohio.

And his question is about wheat.

Do you see July wheat topping out by the end of the first quarter?

End of the first quarter?

You know, I don't know.

Wheat has been in that downtrend.

Severe drought downtrend.

And every time we thought there was going to be something geopolitical or something that would turn the corner, here we go.

It's every time we've had that rally and it's odd.

I don't know why it is, but there's a trend line that you can go back and look.

And when there's no story out there with supply and demand, we start trading the charts.

Let me make a story up for you.

We were talking about snow cover earlier.

That was the story a couple of weeks ago was the cold, the freeze, the freezing of this crop.

Let's just say Sean Hackett's right and there's a big cold snap coming at the end of February.

You're going to go about six weeks.

Five weeks of that stuff, turning the switch on and starting to grow and say we get that cold snap.

Is that a scenario that you could see helping wheat?

Oh, absolutely.

Because you need some damage to the supply to turn the story around.

And you know, I watched July Chicago because there's other wheat to talk about.

Let's just focus on July 2024.

$6.20, $6.25 That's huge level.

And then when it comes down to support $6, $5.93, if that holds, you know, we'll be all right.

But you can't you can't start turning about the turn to what actually happened.

So we've had multiple times we've tried to get above $6.20 and we failed.

I think if we can settle about $6.20, $6.25 on a weekly basis, then these funds that are short, they will trust me, they want to make money, they will get long tomorrow if they think that's the way to be.

So as you said, though, they look for headlines.

Yes.

They see headlines for an opportunity they're in.

Yes.

All right.

So let's see what's in for corn.

This is Jared in Minnesota.

He's taking the positive approach.

What's the best case for corn in 24?

I think we get back up to $5.25, $5.30.

That's a give that October blip.

That's the first hurdle.

Something around $5.50, I think would be very, very, very positive.

And that's it's a possibility.

Everything has to fall into place with the weather.

We have to get some more demand from China for our corn.

But yeah, I mean, it's always darkest before the dawn.

That's what they say.

So we'll see.

You always say you can't.

Nobody predicts the top.

But can anybody predict the bottom?

No.

Most farmers think they always know a lot of my.

No, I you know, also to predicting the bottom.

What if we go into a sideways trading?

You know, I keep going back to 20 like 13 to 17.

We were in a 50 cent range and corn 75, the range of foreign for a long time where we couldn't get above 40 excuse me 430 and we couldn't get below around $3.60, $3.50 so that may be in fact that would probably be the worst case scenario for everybody because the rallies are short lived.

Just when you think maybe I should wait and not do something, then they're gone.

And it's it can be sideways.

Trade is very, very difficult to handle.

So I'm I'm not extremely bearish.

I'm not extremely bullish either.

We need to get through this the next three months.

And it's been a long time.

I can't remember the time we haven't had some sort of weather issue between now and the middle of March, middle of April, when guys are starting to get ready, get out there and start planning.

We'll see.

Because with with the boat leaning so heavily, write, the charts are all negative.

The professional traders are all negative.

All it takes is something and I'll said everybody's the wrong way and you could get a rally.

So my point is for these corn, if we get to $5.25, if we get to $5.50, don't start dreaming of corn at $8.

Take advantage of that.

If we get there, it makes some sales.

You can always re on it after the sale, but try and make a good cash sale.

We'll stick with the boat metaphor.

That ship has sailed probably.

Okay.

All right, let's go.

Another corn question.

This one's about the old crop here, Chris.

We are.

This is Roger in Indiana.

He has a couple coming up here on X.

We are five months into the marketing year.

Farmers have record amounts of corn stored on the farm.

Will end users have to bid to pry this loose?

Yeah, somebody will have to.

And we'll see what happens if there's any, again, any supply disruption if we see start seeing weather issues.

But with the you know, with the type of carry out that we have, you know, like I said, it's things are very, very negative now.

It's hard to get yet not to get super negative when we're down, you know, at these levels.

But yes, if there's a reason for the end users to come, it, they will come for it.

Because, you know, and I don't think they're going to have to knock on the door very hard.

If we get a little bit of a blip, I think you'll see some guys will say, you know what, we should probably do some marketing if we get a rally.

And maybe they're going to look at this.

Given that economic report about the jobs report, there was already discussion that interest rates now might not hold, but there might have to go up higher to cool, they're saying inflation is back.

That's going to tie in to this question.

Here's Roger's second question, Chris.

$4.40 corn today would equal $1.19 in 1980 dollars.

Shouldn't corn buyers be scooping this bargain up if not, what's it going to take?

And I tie that in to inflation because of just what happened since Roger wrote this question with today's news.

Well, remember, 2020, I mean, we went from $3.50 corn, DEC corn, DEC 24 corn, traded #3.95 and went up to, you know, seven something.

So it's possible.

And again, it doesn't one one everything is leaning so towards the other way.

It doesn't take a whole lot to start the fire the other way.

So when it comes, you know, it could be powerful and that's the one thing that we've lost that the 2020 to 2022.

Oh, it was inflation.

You had to own commodities.

That was a tailwind.

Everybody wanted to own commodities.

That all went away.

And we'll see maybe people got, you know, over their skis thinking that the Fed was going to cut seven times.

You know what I mean?

So, again, if you're looking for a positive outcome for inflation, if inflation comes back, that would be supportive for commodities.

I know it's it's it's a double edged sword because everything else is expensive.

But if we do get inflation back, that would be something.

Because again, not only you have you have outside interest where the finance community wants suddenly wanted to own commodities.

That would be a bullish turn.

One last question, and it's from our friend Phil in Dresden, Ontario.

Hello, Phil?

Phil, he wants to know with the agricultural commodity complex bearish as we go into February, where will the bullish grain marketing opportunities come from Moving into spring or are we in for the bearish long haul?

Yeah, I well, I can tell you in three months, right.

That's that's the whole thing.

I know wants to know now.

So do.

I. I would say this now's not the time to get overly bearish when we're at three year lows, I would protect what you can and hope that you could get a rally.

Now, the question is, if and when we get a rally in, generally we'll get a rally.

I can't imagine a year where we don't get some sort of June-July issue.

You've got to be willing to to make some moves when we have those rally.

If if 2023 taught you nothing that that last little trip, especially just take corn or we went from $4.90 to $6.30 and everybody froze that if we get another rally like that, you've got to take advantage of it.

So if you learned nothing from 2023 for 2024, if we get another rally like that, let them have it.

So I guess I'll ask it this way.

Do we anticipate in 24 the rallies are going to look more like this week or what they have looked like in the past in the tent?

And I'm talking the length of them.

I wasn't really joking when I said that was up for about 4 hours this week.

We've had prolonged rallies.

Do you see those days kind of in the rearview For right now, as.

Long as we have this huge carry out?

Yes.

And, you know, that's one thing we've got the truth of that carry out.

The U.S. is going to have to revise some numbers.

I mean, we've got another report next week there of the middle of February.

You know, it's going to take something like that where they were like, oh, look, we missed this.

We missed that.

That could turn it around.

But again, I think the number one problem with corn is the carry out.

There's no getting around that that carry out is burdensome.

And until they're selling, you're saying.

Right, right.

And then what's a farmer are going to do.

Are they going to plant less acres now?

They're going to try and yield their way out of it.

So that's it's a that's the that's the catch 22, because guys are going to plant their feet and say, you know what, I'm just going to grow more.

I'm going to have, you know, have a bigger yield.

And yeah, so we're in that situation where we're right on that cedar Point.

So we have WASDE next week, we have the USDA Outlook Forum and then we have another we have planning intentions all coming up in the next six weeks.

Any of those three that need to be planning.

Intentions March 31st, if you had nothing to report, you need to had the January report, what you just went through and then you see the aftermath of that, then then March 31st pending attention, because, you know, we were to sit or talk about it during the break.

Is there going to be any acres that are going to move towards beans versus corn?

I don't know.

But if they if there is that move that could reprice the grains.

So March 31st is going to be a big report.

And that is going to be the big time ending to this program.

Chris Robinson, thank you so much.

Good to see you again.

Good to see you.

That is our market.

Plus, next week on the TV show, we are going to look at having that tough talk about farm transitions.

We'll also have the commodity mark analysis with Ted Seifried Thank you for joining us.

Have a great week.