What’s Up, What’s Down: Spotlight on Grains

Comments for December 21, 2011

Looking ahead to Wednesday by reflecting back on Tuesday’s trading

Futures and options trading is speculative in nature and involves substantial risk of loss. Futures and options trading is not suitable for all investors

ARE THE GRAINS STARTING TO BOTTOM?

GRAINS: 12/21/11 Higher closes yesterday for soybeans, soymeal, soyoil, rough rice, corn, oats, Minneapolis, Kansas City and Chicago wheat. We are showing possible bottoming signs in several of the grains including Minneapolis wheat, corn, beans and meal. Minneapolis, KC and Chicago wheat continue to look weak overall but now Minneapolis looks like its attempting to form a possible bottom with its best high and close in over two weeks. Also, a key price area to watch is around 850.  KC  Chicago still has a DOUBLE BOTTOM in place but good resistance from 650 to 675 that must be addressed by the bulls sooner or later while KC had its best high and close in two weeks also. Oats have very little resistance up to the 350 area and did have its best close in a week which can’t be ignored if a rally takes place. A key price to watch is the last high of 322 1/5 along with a close over 325 for the oats too. Rice made its highest high and close in a week but barely put a dent in its bearish technicals. Corn settled near its session’s highs with its best high and close in two weeks again now forming a potential bottom. Of course, as mentioned here often, there is a gap at 698 with strong resistance from 650 to the 700 area and history says the odds are that this gap will be filled, but right now it looks like a fading memory. The beans(1150 first key price to close above), meal(watch 300) and oil(5084 key price) settled higher with the beans and meal making their best highs and closes in a month. The beans and meal seem to be attempting to form bottoms while the oil just looks lower off of spread trading against the meal. SELL SIGNALS FOR MINNEAPOLIS,KANSAS CITY AND CHICAGO WHEAT ALONG WITHSOYBEANS, SOYMEAL AND SOY OIL ALONG WITH ROUGH RICE AND OATS. CALL FOR DETAILS!

For more Grains commentary, please visit my Grain Futures Update blog. (https://grainfuturesupdate.com/)

For the Christmas holiday trading hours schedule, see the Hot Topics page at my website (https://www.zaner.com/3.0/market_information/hot_topics.asp)

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Rick Alexander has been a broker and analyst in the futures business for over thirty years. He is a Vice-President for Sales and Trading at the Zaner Group (www.zaner.com) a Chicago-based futures brokerage firm. Email Rick at ralexander@zaner.com or call toll-free (888) 281-4158.

Futures and options trading is speculative in nature and involves substantial risk of loss. Futures and options trading is not suitable for all investors. The information in this Report and the opinions expressed are subject to change without notice. All known news and events have already been factored into the price of the underlying commodities discussed.