DTN Midday Grain Comments 03/28 11:48

DTN Midday Grain Comments 03/28 11:48 Grains Barely Higher at Midday Lightly higher futures trade is seen at midday in slow trade. By David Fiala DTN Contributing Analyst General Comments The U.S. stock market indices are higher with the Dow futures up 85 points. The interest rate products are lower. The dollar index is 12 points higher. Energies are higher with crude up $0.85. Livestock trade is mixed. Precious metals are mixed as well. CORN Corn trade is a penny higher at midday; the daily ranges have been less than 3 cents illustrating position squaring slow trade. Since we have sold off the trade appears to be thinking some negative items are priced-in due to the lower futures trade. Futures did trade at a new 2017 low on Monday. Friday we will see two big USDA numbers: the March Planting Intentions and March Quarterly Grain Stocks report. Stocks are a gage of usage, acreage a gage of expected 2017 production. Historically our stocks and carryover is high, so even a lower than expected acreage number would still have our carryover historically high with normal weather. Once we are past Friday, the focus should be on planting and early field work weather. Moisture now is still good and needed in the Corn Belt, but soon it will be supportive to the market. On the May chart support is at the $3.52 late December low. Resistance is the 10-day at $3.61. SOYBEANS Soybean trade is 1 to 2 cent higher at midday with selling easing after the pressure so far this week. Meal is fractionally higher and soybean oil up 15 points higher. Long liquidation could always step up but the trade appears to be showing more reluctance to sell new five-month lows. Fear of higher acres on the March Planting Intentions report appear to be outweighing ideas of a lower stocks number due to the stellar U.S. demand to-date on this 2016-17 crop year. On the May soybean chart nearby support is hard to identify with a new low at $9.68 scored yesterday. The one-year low is at $9.37 1/4 which is key chart support at this juncture. Resistance is at the 10-day and lowest major moving average at $9.91. WHEAT Wheat trade is 1 to 4 cents higher at midday across the three markets. Light spillover support from the row crops and the weak dollar this week is limiting downside in wheat. Warmer weather should continue to push growth; it is still early where a cold snap could cause damage. So the trade remains focused on the weather. The export news has been OK, but still not big enough to give us a bull market. On the May Kansas City contract support is at the daily low at $4.18 3/4 then the $4.11 1/2, contract low. Resistance is at the 10-day at $4.37. Wheat is now over 50 cents below our nine-month high printed in mid-February and not far from the contract lows; this echos the large historic supply-side fundamentals we have for wheat. The stocks report on Friday will be a reminder of that. David Fiala is a DTN contributing analyst and the President of FuturesOne and a registered adviser. He can be reached at dfiala@futuresone.com Follow Fiala on Twitter @davidfiala (ES) Copyright 2017 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved.