Soybean oil corrects while corn returns to its highs.

After a softer night session, corn has returned to the highs seen in the post-November crop production report. Having absorbed heavy farmer selling, it looks poised to travel higher yet still on strong exports. Today, we will get updated export inspections by midday after they were delayed by yesterday’s Veteran’s Day holiday. Traders continue to look for solid loadings of both corn and soybeans, as demand has been stout and a lot of the logistical issues we had been seeing with low river levels and an extremely fast harvest starting to remedy themselves.

The uncertainty over what trade looks like going forward has resulted in a more cautious approach to purchases by some. Many believe that China still has just over 10 million metric tons of soybeans left to buy before the end of February. Offers out of Brazil and Argentina for that time are relatively limited, likely pushing the business to the US as Chinese crush margins say to buy the beans.

Weakness in beans overnight was tied to Malaysian Palm oil declining in one of its largest daily losses in months on profit-taking tied to the worry of palm oils premium to crude all would cause the Indonesian government policymakers to slow-walk the rolling out of B40 blend rate in 2025. There are rumors that the government could tear the rollout to B40 over the first six months of the calendar year to allow domestic palm oil production to grow. It was also reported that China purchased 500,000 MTs of Australian wheat for February/March shipment in their first world wheat purchase since last February.

With the government back to work this morning, traders are expecting additional soybean sales to China for late December and that US corn/soybean harvest data will show the crop pretty much finished. The good/excellent crop ratings for wheat should rise 2-3% to 44-45%. US winter wheat condition ratings will rise into December.

Yesterday China’s Single Day Internet shopping spree produced lukewarm results with high-end luxury items being aborted. Meanwhile OPEC cut their crude oil demand forecast by 107,000 barrels/day to 1.8 Mil barrels/day on slowing energy use. This was OPEC’s fourth crude oil consumption cut in as many months. There is no indication of impending energy or goods inflation.

Weather in South America remains favorable, with a mixture of sunshine and rainfall for seed germination and early growth. December is the key month for soybean reproduction, and the monsoon looks to remain active at this time. Meanwhile, southern Brazil and Argentina will be dry into late Saturday before showers/storms return. Rain returns the last half of the weekend and continues on Monday.

Live and feeder cattle futures closed higher on Monday, with a steady outlook anticipated this morning. Yesterday, December live cattle fell to an 8-week low and closed unchanged, while the rest of the cattle market was higher. Feeder cattle futures marked the better gains, with January finding support just above the 50-day MA. Active negotiated live cattle trade will be anticipated after Wednesday, while last week’s develop in a broad range. Last week, the 5-area average was down $3 for the week at $186.53. The price range between different cell types also widened to a $15 range, or the most in nine weeks. Forward contracts sales brought the top price of $308, while negotiated sales were the lowest at $293. The average negotiated grid price was $299, and the average formula price was $302. All sales types were above prices a year ago.

Box beef prices found a little support on Monday, with Choice gaining $0.28 and Select jumping $2.65. December live cattle have resistance at the gap from last week at 185.25 which is now considered resistance. Support and yesterday’s low of 182.80 was right inside of our 182.50-183.00 support range. That needs to hold as a significant early weekly low. Breaching those cascades losses further.