Farewell to Jim Conners

Greetings again from Mifflintown, Monday evening. Today I learned that a gentleman that I listen to daily on an audio feed from Chicago made his last broadcast on Friday. Today we learned that Jim had been battling cancer for three years and it took a turn for the worse over the weekend. So today was Jim Conners day on Futuresline, a small 2000 person group that discuss the markets on a daily basis. I sent him an email thanking him for his insight and wisdom. As a veteran bond trader, Jim had a uncanny ability to see thru the news and the hyperbole and could set aside the top 8 or 10 things that he thought the market would care about. He was witty and smart, an optimistic person that challenged you to think independently. Jim undoubtedly sharpened my skills as a market participant and helped to understand this business . Jim will be sadly missed by me and many others and we wish him the best.

Tomorrow morning at 8:30 am the USDA will issue the quarterly stocks report and the acreage estimates. After reading and reviewing all of the private estimates, the market will react most strongly in my opinion to the bean stocks and the corn acreage number. Today the market wanted to buy corn and sell beans. We will see if this leads to the report data or perhaps it is just a head fake.

I was asked 100 times today what the report will say. The answer is and was that I wished that I knew, but I obviously do not. Tomorrow's report undoubtedly sets the stage along with weather for the next 8 weeks of trade. The 30 year seasonals point to weakness in April and then a strong rally into late June.

The outside markets were very weak today. The stock market was all sellers on the news of a possible structured bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler. To me, the market was very overdue for a correction. We simply came to far too fast and some consolidation is in order. My next bogey is a retest of the past support of 741 on the S & P.

If the pending USDA report and the stock market sell off wasn't enough, we have the FOREX market to contend with. The dollars weakness had ended abruptly, sending crude oil prices plummeting adding to the pressure in the grain trade. Trading volumes are down significantly year over year. Last year in the heat of the trade, the front month corn contract traded in excess of million contracts, today the volume was around 85000 contracts.

I will update everyone tomorrow after the report. Please call with any questions or comments.

Good luck,

Jon Hart