Saturday, July 9, 2011

Weekly Grain Update

Open interest in Wheat is quite low; commercials own the long end of things, funds hold about 60% of the shorts and farmers plus small specs the other 40%. Assume for sake of analysis that the wheat crop is going to be much less than a "bumper crop." The position holdings will be nice for bulls, if the "IFs" turn into "WHENs". 
December wheat spent most of the past two weeks reading oversold. Generally, prices do not go straight up from oversold; rather, they tend to go down more but weakly enough that oversold doesn't recur.  September is slightly, but only slightly, less bearish. In terms of targeting, 650 was the first downside target basis Dec. Looks like prices should go on down at least to 620.
Beans are very sideways. In May, prices got just under $13, then bounced. This week was spent bouncing from the same price levels. At this point, a reasonable guess is up to $14 the get tired. If, at any time, bearish news comes from the farms, $14 is likely to be the launching platform. CoT numbers are almost even, with the net longs coming from funds and the short side provided by commercials and farmers.
Corn saw positional CoT shrinkage this report, by which I mean commercials let go of some shorts while funds let go of some longs. Monday saw sharp selling that took prices almost all the way to a mid-March swing low in September's contract. Not quite as much was managed in Dec. Since then, prices have been all up. While I'm not prepared to take permanent position, my short term view is more up motion, likely to reach $7 or $7.20 basis December.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Alan Blinder

Alan Blinder, a well-known and well-respected economist who served, briefly, inside the Beltway in DC, has written a short piece that helps ground the reader whilst the hurricane of rhetoric from inside the beltway tries to blow away any pretense at reality.

The lack of reality testing prevalent in the Republican party these days is enough to qualify most for beds in the nearest insane asylum... as if that will happen.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Daily Blatt July 5th

OK, all over the British media is speculation on whether the US will default before Greece does, and how baaaad it will be, should we have a (technical) default. That must mean that US bonds went down in price, up in yield, because the assorted ratings services are babbling (I do mean "babbling") down grade, right? And the US Dollar went down today because, after all, who would want USD denominated debt, right?

Naturally, the above seemingly logical results were all what did NOT happen. Bonds were up smartly and the dollar was up against at least all the following: $C, $A, GBP, Euro, NZD, and Yen.

"When logic and proportion fallen sloppy dead..." with apologies to Grace Slick.