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

Comments for April 6, 2011

Looking Ahead to Today by Reflecting Back at Tuesday’s Price Action

GRAINS:

Higher closes for Minneapolis and Kansas City wheat along with oats, rough rice and corn while lower for Chicago wheat soybeans, soyoil and soymeal. The wheat complex settled sharply higher with Minneapolis and KC making their best closes since February while Chicago settled lower this time. Chicago has good resistance from 800-825 basis the May contract while Minneapolis is close to a buy signal but not quite there. Rice settled with its best high and close in a week while in a potential bottoming formation but still a sell. Corn rallied to make another new CONTRACT HIGH AND CLOSE but with May and July corn contracts still having two gaps below and, in my opinion, fill over 90% of them. The last gap not filled for corn, as far as I can tell, was back in 2009. Please call for details on how to deal with the corn gaps if you are interested. Oats also settled higher for the fourth consecutive trading session still in a resistance area with 397 1/2 a key price to watch. The bean complex settled lower continuing to struggle against the corn and wheat which has been showing up in the spreading since the prospective plantings report. Still the beans and meal are in potential bottoming formations while 597 1/2 seems to be a key price for the may oil contract which has held up better overall so far. BUY SIGNALS FOR CORN, CHICAGO AND KANSAS CITY WHEAT. SELL SIGNALS FOR OATS, ROUGH RICE, SOYBEANS, SOYMEAL, SOYOIL AND MINNEAPOLIS WHEAT.

But in early morning trading, grains are moderately stronger overall. My Futures HeatMap, a color-coded view of the eight futures market sectors, shows that Grains, as of 8:00 am Central this morning (April 6), are up a composite 0.36%; led by strength in Soybeans. To view the Heat Map, click, or type this link into your browser: http://www.markethead.com/2.0

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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.

The information in this Report and the opinions expressed are subject to change without notice. Neither the information nor any opinion expressed constitutes a solicitation by Rick Alexander or the Zaner Group of the purchase or sale of any futures or options. 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.