Grain prices started the month of February looking to come out of the gate running – mainly from their January shadow (much like the groundhog did, but you probably don’t need a rodent to tell you if winter’s over or not if you live in Canada). Most of North American’s major growing regions are starting... Read More
Category: Economy & Financial Markets
Grain markets ended the month of January well below where they started, despite volatile currencies, weather, and geo-political risk keeping prices off the lows. Managed money continue to drop their net long positions in the agricultural complex recently to its lowest levels since October, mainly thanks to the strength of the U.S. dollar. Investors in... Read More
Grain markets started 2015 out on a bad foot as the first trading day of the year on Friday, January 2nd was all red. But the complex rebounded in the following days thanks to weather concerns and managed-money changing positions. Oats, corn, (Chicago) wheat, and soybeans continue to hover over some nice even numbers of... Read More
2014 started out with a lot of frustration: Grain was hardly moving through Canada as the Great White North experienced some record cold temperatures and record ice cover on the Great Lakes. With the railroads making more money moving oil, elevators couldn’t take deliveries and the amount of ships sitting at the port waiting for... Read More
Global markets were blindsided by Russia in the third week of December as Moscow raised its key interest rates to a shocking 17 per cent, up significantly from the 10.5 per cent level they had been just raised to a few days earlier. Why the rate increase? The ruble has been free-falling this year with... Read More
Rumours are building again that Russia may limit their grain exports (specifically wheat) and the government might start increasing the purchasing price from farmers for the government reserve stocks (the government is definitely worried about rising domestic food prices). This would incentivize producers to sell to the government versus grain merchants/exporters. SovEcon said earlier in... Read More
The recovery of the U.S. economy remains critical to Canada’s economic health, says an economist with RBC Financial. “We have growth and a strengthening economy in Canada as a result from strengthening in exports, but a lot of that is riding on the pick-up in growth in the U.S. and facilitated further by a little... Read More
Changes in U.S. monetary policy could be worth paying attention to in the next year. After nearly six years, the Federal Reserve announced this week that it is ending “quantitative easing,” the bond buy-back program implemented to help the U.S. economy through the recession. The end of QE is seen by many as a step... Read More
As we say goodbye to October, colder weather is setting in just as the markets could be warming up. More than a few analysts are pointing to soy meal as a driver of the sustained rally we’ve seen in the grain markets recently, but the move is now beyond “rational levels”. With an increase in... Read More
Are you ready for corn prices down around $2.70/bushel, or soybeans under $7 next fall? Those numbers were included in some of the projections shared in Winnipeg this week, as market analysts and traders from around the world gathered for the second annual Cereals North America market outlook conference. The conference was organized and co-hosted... Read More