Marty Hibbs is a grain merchandiser with Grain Farmers of Ontario. Hibbs is a 25 year veteran futures trader, analyst, and portfolio manager. He was a regular guest analyst on BNN for four years and is currently authoring the Market Side education series on futures trading basics in the Ontario Grain Farmer magazine.
Grain Market Commentary for March 22, 2017
March 22, 2017
| Commodity | Period | Price | Weekly Movement |
| Corn CBOT | May | 3.58 | 05 cents |
| Soybeans CBOT | May | 9.98 | 00 cents |
| Wheat CBOT | May | 4.21 | 15 cents |
| Wheat Minn. | May | 5.38 | 02 cents |
| Wheat Kansas | May | 4.31 | 15 cents |
| Chicago Oats | May | 2.52 | 05 cents |
| Canadian $ | June | 0.7510 | 0.00 points |
Corn
As indicated in last week’s commentary, a correction is underway in the May contract after receiving a red sell signal on March 10. Tuesday, February 28 marked the highs of the recent run-up, and since then we continue to probe the downside for solid support before we attempt another challenge of those highs. Our first good support line is around the $3.50 level on the May contract while our major overhead resistance level is around $4.
Short term indicators are negative and the main trend is still down.
Soybeans
Repeating again from the last two weeks, our red sell signal from February 22 is still intact, and the May contract has now dropped forty cents to date. Our six month old up-trend line still remains under attack as the May contract refuses to make any significant closes below the $10 support level. This looks like just a matter of time as the downward pressure continues on all of the grains. Our May contract needs to stay above $9.85 on a close basis or risk a possible test of the $9.50 support area from last summer.
Short term indicators are negative and the main trend is still down.
Wheat
Our key reversal from February 16 is behaving as expected. That rally took us temporarily through the $4.65 down-trend line before closing that day with a strong reversal. Since then we have been in a corrective mode. A red sell signal on March 13 confirmed this correction is still ongoing. At this point I feel a close below $4.20 on the May contract would suggest a strong possibility of a retest of the May contract lows of $4.05.
Short term indicators are still negative and the primary trend is still down.
Harvest 2016 crop cash prices as of close on March 22, 2017
SWW @ $199.32/MT ($5.42/bu), HRW @ $199.32/MT ($5.42/bu),
HRS @ $229.92/MT ($6.26/bu), SRW @ $199.32/MT ($5.42/bu).
