China sales spur new hope

Markets were mostly lower midweek but there is more hope for prices as another sale to China was announced Wednesday.

After this week’s back-to-back sales announcements, there weren’t any big ones reported since early March. Wayne Nelson of L&M Commodities thought there would be more market reaction to the news this week.

“A lot of guys are feeling that it is maybe a good will gesture before the talks with China in Alaska,” Nelson told The Central Illinois Farm Network.

The big planting intentions report comes out later this month which shows what farmers intend to plant in 2021. All of the surveys were done during the first part of the month so the data is a couple of weeks old now and there is still plenty of time before we get the information.

“Most of the private surveys are upping the acreage a little bit from what they had in the February meeting,” Nelson said.

Nelson reminds producers the limits that the big funds and speculators can trade were raised on the 15th. We haven’t seen any of this take effect yet but it might come into play after the USDA reports on March 31.