Geopolitics:
Yesterday the Russian-Ukraine war saw one of it’s deadliest days. At least 51 people dying from a Russian attack on a Ukrainian military Academy and nearby hospital. 270 others were injured in the chaos. President Zelensky immediately called for aid from the West. He asked for long-range shells and missiles that would reach further into Russia. He is asking for the weapons, but also needs the permission to perform such an aggressive strike against Russia. Will the UN, other European leaders, or the US allow for such a response? Depends on what they all think Putin will do if he feels he is losing ground.
Macroeconomics:
Today’s JOLTS Job Openings report is the number of job openings reported during the month of July. Forecasts for today’s report averaged 8.09 million and the report came in below that at 7.67 million openings. Additionally, they revised June’s job openings down 279K to 7.9 million. Today’s report represents the lowest number of job openings since January of 2021.The number of construction jobs specifically has dropped to it’s lowest levels since late 2020.
Ag Fundamentals:
Soybeans are finding some support with news of dry conditions continuing in Brazil. Below i have a couple maps highlighting the growing areas experiencing the issues. Beans have rallied +65 cents from the mid August lows. I does not sound like the farmer is rewarding this rally in a big way, but that could change before the weekend. Bean spreads will start to act more jumpy if Brazil walks further into a severe drought through October. As of today their Monsoons should still relieve them.
Corn has developed a pattern in the past 5 harvests that may hold true in today’s market. Each year, for the past 5 marketing years, corn has had a seasonal rally from mid August to mid November. The seasonal lows on corn come between Aug 10th and Sept 10th. The seasonal highs for corn are recorded between October 10tha mid November. The average price movement for these corn rallies have been around 78 cents (Last year was only 34c rally between Aug 22-Oct 20). The most drastic of these rallies was in 2020 when corn rallied from 3.07 on Aug 10th to 4.28 on November 11th (+$1.21).
Weather:
Rains scattered over eastern North Dakota and the northern tip of Minnesota. Arkansas is also seeing some rain today in the midst of their corn and bean harvest. The rest of the country is clear and dry. Tropical storms have lowered their strength due to one main reason. The Upper atmosphere is warm; if the upper atmosphere was cooler it would clash with the warm surface temps and create stronger storms. |
