BQC Afternoon Comments Aug 28.24

Macroeconomics:

Nvidia reports a 122% revenue growth, beating expectations and the company provided stronger-than-expected guidance for the current quarter. The stock is slightly down after closing at 125.61, now closer to 121.64. Earnings per share came in at 68¢ adjusted vs. 64¢ expected and revenue came in at $30.04 billion vs. $28.7 billion expected. For perspective, NDVA makes up 6.67% of the S&P 500 ETF components and which makes it #2 behind Apple’s 6.94%. If artificial-intelligence is the “new gold rush” then Nvidia’s data center chips are the shovels for sale.

Ag Fundamentals:

China, in efforts to support their domestic grain prices, has focused their purchasing efforts within their own boarders. This has brought life to their cash values and has ignited fears of less demand from US farmers. US weekly ethanol production was up 6% compared to last year and a record for the week. Ethanol stocks were steady week-over-week. The report brings into question if the USDA needs to add 10 to 20 million bushels to their corn usage numbers on their September 12th report.

Weather:

Radar is mostly clear today over the US growing areas. Light rains are expected tomorrow over Minnesota and parts of North Dakota. A couple things to pay attention to over the next few weeks are: the development of tropical storms over the Atlantic and the outlook of Brazil’s monsoon which typically begins around late September/early October.

South America’s precipitation anomaly map is showing signs of dryness over their major growing areas.