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 June 21, 2017
June 21, 2017
| Commodity | Period | Price | Weekly Movement |
| Corn CBOT | July | 3.69 | 08 cents |
| Soybeans CBOT | July | 9.19 | 13 cents |
| Wheat CBOT | July | 4.65 | 22 cents |
| Wheat Minn. | July | 6.49 | 22 cents |
| Wheat Kansas | July | 4.68 | 11 cents |
| Chicago Oats | July | 2.59 | 04 cents |
| Canadian $ | September | 0.7525 | 0.25 points |
Corn
The $3.80 -$4 resistance level did its job and allowed for sale of product at higher prices. It then decided to withdraw in an orderly fashion to re-test the support line once more at the $3.60 level based on July. Our red buy signal from June 8 is still intact and we should be able to hold the support for at least one more attempt at the $4 level on the lead month contract.
We will need a convincing close above $4 before we are ready to challenge the long term trend line at $4.40. Support on the July contract is seen at $3.60, while overhead resistance is still at $3.80 – $4 on the lead month contract.
Next week we will switch to the September contract for the purpose of technical analysis.
Short term indicators are neutral to positive, but the main trend is still down.
Soybeans
Prices continue to slip lower on the July futures and we are now just seven cents from the contract lows on July. Our red sell signal on May 19 is still intact, and we will possibly see another challenge of the $9.10 support based on the July contract. Overhead resistance is seen at $9.50 and again at $9.80, while support in the July contract is now at the $9.10 mark. It is very likely we will see a test of the $9 price on July before it expires. It is important that this level holds, as there isn’t much support below here until we approach the $8.50 level.
We will be switching to November new crop beans starting next week for the technical outlook.
Short term indicators are all negative, and the main trend is still down.
Wheat
The week of June 12 we officially received a red buy signal on the monthly Minneapolis chart. This is a very positive sign going forward, however, this is on the technical outlook and we will expect some severe moves both up and down in the coming weeks and possibly months. It is difficult to guess where we will go first, up towards the $7.25 price or pull back to challenge the support around the $6 mark. Either way, this market is pumped.
Chicago wheat, while not performing as well as its cousin, has been on track with our analysis. We are still looking for $5 futures by harvest based on the lead month contract. The week of June 19 saw the July contract gain about 30 cents per bushel and the September traded as high as $4.90 as of this writing. The five point wave formation still suggests we could be looking at $5 to $5.25 on the September contract by mid summer.
Meanwhile, solid support is seen at $4.20 – $4.30, while our overhead resistance is now at $4.75 the old pivot high reached in March of this year.
For technical analysis we will be switching to the September chart for our next commentary. Short term indicators are positive, but the primary trend is down.
Harvest 2017 prices as of the close, June 21 are as follows:
SWW @ $219.48/MT ($5.97/bu), HRW @ $217.05/MT ($5.91/bu),
HRS @ $267.34/MT ($7.28/bu), SRW @ $217.05/MT ($5.91/bu)
