Corn traders wait on more detailed headlines about Chinese trade negotiations and South American weather. U.S. and Chinese trade talks are scheduled to take place in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday.

Bulls are hoping to hear talk of U.S. corn, ethanol, and DDG's mentioned in conversation.

Bears are pointing to a slightly improved South American weather forecast, a bit more rain in dry portions of Brazil, and a bit less in overly wet portions of Argentina. Bears are also pointing to a quicker than normal soybean harvest in several key growing regions in Brazil. Hence a quicker pace to planting second-crop corn, which ultimately helps improve the odds of rainfall running short later in the growing season.

Bottom-line, there's still a ton of second-crop weather uncertainty in Brazil and that will remain the case for the next 45 to 60 days.

Here at home, traders are eager to start seeing updated USDA data. There's some continued debate between the bulls and bears regarding U.S. export and ethanol demand.

I continue to hear debates about planted U.S. corn acres in 2019. With not a ton of fall field work done, cash-flow tight, and U.S. bankers not wanting to expand lines-of-credit, it might be tough to gain the corn acres many have been forecasting. I think it's still way too early to give a very accurate forecast.

Click Here to read my thoughts on how soybean acres could be the wild card in 2019!

http://www.vantrumpreport.com/free-trial/

The opinions of the author are not necessarily those of Corn+Soybean Digest or Farm Progress.