USDA today released its first, and very preliminary, supply and demand estimates for the 2012/13 marketing year and, as expected, the numbers were bearish corn. It is very important to keep in mind that today's numbers were put together late in 2011 and are for budgeting purposes only. USDA will give us a more current look at its expectations later this month at the annual Outlook Conference. It is somewhat useful, however, to look at the starting points for the corn, wheat and soybeans estimates, because it does provide some insight as to how USDA views the situation heading into the new marketing year. Below are some thoughts.It was no surprise that USDA started things off by using 2.1 million more planted acres and, more significantly,...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
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