Market Bullets® Wednesday, April 2, 2025: Pre-Dawn

     Oklahoma, Texas, Montana and South Dakota are the most rain-needy Hard Red Winter wheat states. There is moisture in the forecast, but forecast is not cast in mud yet. Monday April 7th we will see the first release of weekly Crop Condition reports from USDA.

     The USDA sez 2025 U.S. corn planted acreage is intended at 95.326 million acres, up from 94.0 million at the Feb Ag Forum and nearly a million above the average estimate. Looks like the soybean/corn price ratio’s indicated favor toward corn was correct, rotation or no rotation. The price of corn has played a role in encouraging wheat to rally. Now the sister grain may be unable to help much more.

     A Reuters survey of analysts and traders has the expected 2025/26 Australian wheat crop at 28.6 million tonnes, 16% below last year’s 34.1 million on dry conditions. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) has pegged the crop at 30.5 million metric tonnes. This could if realized make export pricing of U.S. wheat into in the Pacific Rim easier. Only about 15% of total global wheat exports originate in the southern hemisphere.  

     Minneapolis Hard Red Spring wheat futures were down 4-5 cents at 2:30 AM Pacific Time (UTC-7). Paris 11% Milling wheat futures were indicating about the equivalent of 3 cents per bushel.

     China has announced supplementary tariffs of up to 15% on imports from US origins starting March 10, mostly focused on agricultural goods.

     The wheat market is still above the dangerous, sensitive price levels that it visited last week around $5.18, but upside follow-through has been slow in coming. There is a fair chance that we will see more testing of those long-term support price levels before there is a rally of significance. It’s all about the weather now, both in the southern U.S. plains and in the Volga Valley and north. Tariffs will be an ongoing issue, but so far are not playing a major role for wheat prices.

     The short-term trend is unconvincing but positive. The Chicago price of wheat is well below the Box-o-Rox moving average. The choices are either hold and prepare for potential failure of the support price zone, or sell increments on schedule and prepare re-buy orders for the first buy signal above current levels. No-one will be able to criticize either strategy.

Stay tuned.

Market Bullets® Tuesday, April 1, 2025: Pre-Dawn

     USDA’s reports Monday morning delivered a little bias, but no explosive surprises.

      U.S. wheat stocks as of March 1 were posted at 1.236 billion bushels, 15 million bushels above the average trade pre-report guess, but within the range of expectations.  

     The Annual Prospective Plantings report showed 45.35 million acres of wheat intended this year, significantly below the 46.53 million acre pre-report trade average. Total winter wheat acres were 800,000 acres below the January Winter Wheat Seedings 33.315 million and 75,000 below last year. Other Spring wheat was showed with intentions of 10.02 million acres, also below the 10.531 million acre trade estimate.

     This was just enough of a miss on the acreage to release the buyers that had been waiting to pounce, pushing Chicago wheat up 9 cents, KC Hard Red Winter (HRW) up about 4½ and Minneapolis Hard Red Spring (HRS) was the leader, with a 10-cent gain. Paris seems to have taken its lead from Chicago/KC with a 4-cent equivalent gain, and was still slightly positive heading into their late session Tuesday morning (They are 7 hours ahead of Pacific Time – 6 hours ahead of Central).   

     In very early AM trading, the market was hanging onto the gains across the board.

     The setup looks technically positive, but has not been confirmed yet. We’ll just take this one day at a time. At least there was no collapse on Monday!

Stay tuned.

PS - Yet another new all-time high in gold.

PS – Noticeables:  <Diesel>    <Gold>     <US Dollar Index>    <Ruble VS Yuan>    <2-Yr T-Note> <Dow Jones>

Good hunting!

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North of Prescott, Washington

This chart updated end-of-day only

Paris Milling Wheat

See Daily Chart for Paris Wheat click here

This Chart updated end-of-day only

“Agriculture is our wisest pursuit because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals and happiness.” - Thomas Jefferson in a letter to George Washington, April 30, 1787.

“Its the 70th year in a row of unusual weather!’ - Winston Mader (1930 - 2016)

“Prayers Work Best When Your Trades Are With The Trend“ - Larry Williams

“When things go wrong, you'll find they usually go on getting worse for some time; but when things once start going right they often go on getting better and better.” - C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy.

“It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing” - Duke Ellington - 1932

“If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning.” – Vincent van Gogh.

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