Weekend Schedule: Open Saturday 7-?, Closed Sunday  
Monday (Labor Day) To be Decided
Friday Closing Comments
So much for a quiet end to the week. Corn having a relatively quiet day yesterday and last night, wheat not really responding to yesterday’s announcement by Russia that they will stay to the sidelines regarding exports until their next harvest, and a three day trading holiday seemed to point to a quiet session today. So much for that. New money flowing into commodities and a bullish Informa report for good measure pushed corn and wheat sharply higher with beans in tow. CZ finished the session 17 cents higher and 28½ cents higher for the week. WZ was 27½ cents higher today and 46¼ cents higher for the week. Funds were buyers of 30,000 corn contracts and 5,000 wheat contracts by mid-session and hold some stout long futures positions. Market will be anxious to see if they want to hold this length into next Friday’s S&D report. Informa estimates a U.S. corn yield of 158.5 bpa and roughly 82 mln. harvested acres for production of 12,997 mln. bu. Coupled
with a current USDA usage estimate of 13,490, this will drop 10/11 ending stocks to 933 mln. bu. and a stock/use ratio of 6.9%. You have to go back to 95/96 for a number that low. They also dropped world production estimates for corn and wheat by 5.6 MMT and 5.7 MMT respectively.  Soybeans did not want to be left out of the rally, and chased corn and wheat higher today. SX gained 26 cents today but just 9 cents for the week. Funds were buyers of 6,000 contracts by mid-session and also hold large long positions. Informa’s production estimate for beans of 3,437 mln. bu. with a yield of 44.1 bpa is in line with other private estimates as well as USDA’s August report. Using current USDA usage projections, carryout for 10/11 continues to hang in the comfortable area of 350 +/- mln. bu. Informa did drop their world production estimate by 1.5 MMT, but this is not enough to matter. Right or wrong, the market does not seem concerned that dry weather as we end the growing season has impacted bean yields the way corn yields have seemingly been impacted in the southern portions of the eastern cornbelt. Strength in beans seemed tied directly to corn and wheat today.