Our online grain markets columnist Brian Wittal welcomes feedback and information on market conditions in your area, such as current offering prices, basis levels, trucking premiums and special crops contracts. Contact Brian today.
May 20 — Financial markets were rather quiet again today, with limited downside movement. The Canadian dollar continues to climb today on the strength of crude oil and commodities futures.
Beans were off to a strong start, but that led to a lot of farmer selling and hedging pressure, so markets finished with gains, but off of the highs of the day.
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Canola did hold onto small gains today despite the rising dollar. If beans ever lose momentum and start to fall back, you can expect canola to do so at an accelerated pace because of the strong dollar.
The Dow Jones July quote closed down 57 points today at 8,418 while the Canadian dollar was up 1.22 cents today, to close at US87.97 cents.
Crude oil finished up $1.94, closing at US$62.04 per barrel for the day.
Corn finished unchanged to up one cent per bushel today, while beans finished up seven to 20 cents and wheat finished up six to 12 cents per bushel on the various U.S. exchanges today,
Canola finished unchanged to up $1.60 per tonne for the day and barley finished down $1.90 per tonne to close at $150.50 per tonne.
Noteworthy news from Tuesday: Viterra and Australia’s ABB Grain confirmed they have signed an implementation agreement that would see Viterra take over ABB Grain in a deal worth about $1.4 billion.
That’s all for today. — Brian
— Brian Wittal has spent over 27 years in the grain industry, including as an elevator manager and producer services representative for Alberta Wheat Pool, a regional sales manager for AgPro Grain and farm business representative for the Canadian Wheat Board, where he helped design some of the new pricing programs. He also operates his own company providing marketing and risk management advice for Prairie grain producers. Brian’s daily commentaries focus on how domestic and world market conditions affect you directly as grain producers.
