MarketsFarm – The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is typically a time for the markets to slow down, and at the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), that’s certainly the case.
At approximately 10:50 a.m. CST, the volumes for both the highly-traded March corn and soybean contracts did not exceed 78,000, while a typical day would see more than 100,000. Other crops were also seeing lighter volumes during the trading day.
“We saw a little bit of pickup after Boxing Day. (During) Boxing Day, there was a slowdown in trading in Canada and parts of Europe. But overall, we’ve seen a little bit of light producer selling for new crop United States soybeans and a little bit of corn before the October through November positions of basically 2022,” said Terry Reilly, senior agriculture futures analyst for Futures International in Chicago.
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“But overall, it’s been pretty light. It’s been holiday trading activity right now,” he added.
While Reilly only expects moderate price movement until New Year’s, that doesn’t mean an absence of activity.
“We saw a little bit of light selloff in the grains (on Tuesday). (On Wednesday), it’s been a little wishy-washy, I would say, with a little bit of positioning ahead of New Year’s,” Reilly said. “(After that), I do look for prices to maybe appreciate on general inflation gauges and users repositioning themselves ahead of potential price increases.”
