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John Roach's DAILY GRAIN MARKETING PLAN

Overnight Trade

Dec Corn dn 12

Nov Beans dn 31

Dec Wheat dn 16 1/2

Sell Signals

The corn and bean markets’ Sell Signals are in buy territory. The green light is on to accumulate feed needs. Pace your buying because there should be at least 1 and likely 2 more times to accumulate feed inventory on weakness between now and November.

What should a farmer be doing about marketing grain right now? There is no Sell Signal in any of our grains and making sales when there is no Sell Signal is usually a mistake. We will likely get another Sell Signal before harvest, but I really wouldn’t plan on selling much on it. In the past several years farmers have regretted the sales they made during August through November.

I would rather get storage lined up for all the bushels you haven’t sold and plan on making sales during March, April, May, and June on Sell Signals. March through June sales on Sell Signals worked again last spring. We expect the spring of 2009 to be just as exciting as the spring of 2008 at least until we can be assured an adequate supply of new crop production.

Market

Asia-Pacific stocks today closed mixed: Japan +0.33%, Hong Kong -0.99%, China -4.74%, Taiwan +2.63%, Australia +0.06%, Singapore -0.96%, South Korea +0.22%, Bombay +0.33%. The European DJ Stoxx 50 this morning is trading +0.33%.

For the past month the grain market bulls have very little stimulating them except margin calls which are stimulating them to sell. Overnight the U.S. Dollar staged a big rally further frustrating those bulls because a stronger Dollar puts pressure on all commodities that are priced in Dollars. The good news is the stronger Dollar help push crude oil below $118 per barrel.

According to the newswires, the Dollar is stronger because of news that two Russian fighter jets bombed two towns in the South Ossetia area of Georgia. Reports are that Russian Prime Minister Putin said that “war has started” with Georgia over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

The dollar has been beat on by everybody for the past 6 years yet was unable to make further downside progress in the past 6 months. The Russian news is just the catalyst that has started a new uptrend and lots of people have to get turned around. I think the Dollar could have a big up move in the next 12 months.

Isn’t it funny that when prices are going up the news just keeps stimulating prices higher. Then when prices turn down from lofty heights, the news just keeps pushing prices lower.

This week prices have been pounded by FCStone and Informa giving us crop forecasts at or above the high end of expectations, talk about the CFTC forcing liquidation of long index fund positions, and now a stronger dollar. The only good news was the Environmental Protection Agency denied a request from the governor of Texas to cut the federal ethanol mandate in half this year.

F.O. Licht raised its 2008 global wheat estimate to 657.6 million tons this month, up from 655.0 million tons in their previous forecast, due to upward revisions in the European Union., Russia, United States, and Canada.

French crop office ONIGC raised its soft wheat crop estimate to nearly 37 million tons, up from last month’s 36.3 million tons, and one of the biggest crops of the past decade. Exports are still expected to reach 7 million tons or more in 2008-09, after a finally tally of 5 million tons last season.

Pakistan issued a tender for 250,000 tons of wheat overnight, after purchasing 100,000 tons from a July 30 tender and 430,000 tons in a July 26 tender. The country plans to import 2.5 million tons of wheat overall this year.

These data and comments are provided for information purposes only and are not intended to be used for specific trading strategies. This commentary is written as a daily marketing tool to help farmers sell the grain they raise. Although all information is believed to be reliable, we cannot guarantee its accuracy or completeness. Commodity trading involves the risk of loss, and you should fully understand those risks before trading.