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John Roach's DAILY GRAIN MARKETING PLAN

Overnight Trade

May Corn up 4 1/4

May Beans up 12 1/4

May Wheat dn 1/4

Ag Consultants Needed

I’ll bet you already know several top-notch people who might be a good addition to Roach Ag. If you have an idea about someone we should talk to, please ask them to get in touch with Brian Roach at 800-622-7628 or by email at broach@roachag.com. For more information about who we are looking for, check out: http://www.roachag.com/career-opportunities

Sell Signals

Today beans will be in their 8th day of a Roach Ag Sell Signal, but will likely lose it today. We have wrapped up sales on this Sell Signal. We expect at least one more bean Sell Signal during our Selling Season and will wait for it to make additional sales.

The extended corn Sell Signal ended yesterday. Notice that yesterday’s price decline accelerated when the price broke below the green line 20-day moving average. That normally spells further weakness as technical traders try to “get with the trend.” Even though prices might slide lower from here, we expect at lease one more Sell Signal in corn and will wait until the next market peak to make additional sales.

We continue to buy corn and bean puts to bring coverage up to ¾ of the new crop you plan on storing unsold.

Winter wheat markets broke down to new recent lows on Friday and again on Monday. Spring wheat is close to its recent low as well. We will wait for the next Sell Signal to make additional sales, hoping the prices will be higher than today when it comes.

Markets

Asia-Pacific stocks today closed mixed: Japan -1.09%, Hong Kong +0.88%, China +0.88%, Taiwan -0.51%, Australia -0.64%, Singapore +0.51%, South Korea -0.82%, Bombay +0.27%. European stocks are trading slightly lower with the DJ Stoxx 50 down -0.06%.

I believe that markets are in the middle of a scare that the crops will not be planting in a timely fashion. The weekend weather delivered less rain than traders expected and the forecast was for better planting conditions this week. That was all it took to drop corn and bean prices on Monday. Then a smaller than expected corn planting number and a band of heavier than expected showers through central Iowa allowed prices to recover some of the day loses in the overnight trade.

The USDA reported national corn planting progress at just 4% as of Sunday, only 2 points higher than last week, compared to 9% last year, and 17% on the five-year average. FCStone’s weather guru is adamant that quite a bit of corn will be planted this week.

Winter wheat condition declined 2 points this week to 45% good to excellent, 10% below last year’s rating and 7% below average. Key plains states CO, KS, NE, and MT saw 3-6% declines, while TX was steady (though still at just 19% g/ex), and OH (+4%), OR (+11%), and SD (+6%) held up the overall rating. To see the complete state by state wheat ratings and comparisons to normal, click here.

The Buenos Aires Grain Exchange pegged Argentine corn harvest at 43.6% as of Friday, up 4.3% from the previous week. Soybean harvest was estimated at 47.5% complete, up 12% from the previous week, and 1 point ahead of last year’s pace. Their production estimate was left at 48 million tons, with the USDA and the country’s Ag. Secretary are both at 47.5 million tons.

Stats Canada put 2008 all-wheat seedings at 25.109 million acres yesterday morning, up 16.2% from 2007, and above trade estimates of 24.4 million. Stats Canada estimated canola plantings near unchanged from last year with soybean acreage up 2.4%.

Weekly U.S. corn export inspections came in at 36 million bushels bringing cumulative loadings up 19% from a year ago with USDA forecasting annual exports up 17%. Soybean export inspections were reported at 19.6 million bushels bringing cumulative exports down 3% from a year ago with USDA forecasting annual loadings down 4%.

Weekly U.S. wheat export inspections were 22 million bushels bringing cumulative loadings up 42% from a year ago with USDA forecasting annual exports up 40%.

The grains you produce are wholesale inputs and require a buyer to be able to make money using them. To think that demand for grains will grow when few if any users are able to make money is a huge leap in speculative faith. Users are making their plans today for 2009 and those plans must include the highest cost of grain ever. On the April USDA Report the average prices reported told a story about input costs to your buyers:

The average wheat farm gate price was $3.42 for 2005-06; $4.26 for 2006-07; $6.65 (mid-point of the USDA estimate) for 2007-08; and December 2008 wheat futures are between $9.00 and $10.00 depending on the type of wheat you produce.

The average corn price was $2.00 for 2005-06; $3.04 for 2006-07; $4.30 for 2007-08; and December 2008 corn futures are near $6.25.

The average soybean price was $5.66 for the 2005-06 crop year; $6.43 for the 2006-07 crop year; $10.25 2007-08; and November 2008 soybean futures are close to $13.00.

New crop futures are at a price sure to suck equity out of the livestock and ethanol business unless we see consumer staggering record increases in meat and energy prices. And you must count on Washington to keep all bio-fuels incentives in place ignoring consumer and world environmental complaints in one of the most important election years in recent history.

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.