08/25/23 Commodity Performance Update

With the fall harvest approaching quickly to prompt sell-or-store decisions, it is a good time of the year for farmers to compare where crop prices are relative to seasonal expectations and against where they were at this time last year. Seasonally speaking, corn and wheat futures have been tracking lower within a normal pattern of weakness that often finds a bottom during the month of September. Soybeans have held up better relative to seasonal expectations, but history shows a pattern of sharper decline from late August to early October. Knowing that the soybean seasonal points to a low later than corn can be considered alongside the fact that soybean futures are slightly above where they were a year ago while December corn futures are down almost 20 percent, which could possibly encourage taking advantage of the soybean strength sooner and selling soybeans as a type of hedge against further patience on corn.   For wheat, the Chicago contracts are down about 23 percent from their year-ago values and have been cut nearly in half from where they peaked out following the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year. Now that the hedge funds have rebuilt a considerable net-short position in Chicago…