The December WASDE was unsurprisingly unsurprising. USDA literally changed nothing in the U.S. 2018/19 soybean balance sheet and made only modest adjustments to the U.S. corn and wheat tables. Consequently, the markets had a muted reaction to the report, but corn and soybeans finished higher while wheat fell to modest losses. Following are a few tables that highlight the major changes in this month’s WASDE: 

Wall Street is higher as traders are either encouraged by signs of progress between D.C. and Beijing regarding the trade war, or have simply gotten tired of selling stocks (though we expect algos seldom get “tired”). Regardless, the Dow is up 146 points while the S&P 500 is up 0.7 percent. The VIX is caut...