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It would appear that combine operators found another gear last week as corn harvest progress has finally pushed well ahead of average. Knocking out 16% more corn, the harvest has moved up to 41% complete.  The 5-year average is 32%.  Bean progress was by no means sluggish as 23% more beans were harvested, bringing the total up to 61% complete, nearly 20% ahead of the average pace.  With the weather forecast looking generally favorable, it would seem doubtful that there will be many crops left in the field by the time Halloween rolls around. That almost sounds scary.

China was back at the export counter overnight and this time checked out with purchases of 420,000 MT of corn and 264,000 MT of beans.  It is worth pointing out that futures prices for corn in China reached another new record in today’s trade.

There is an old axiom in the investment world that says, Bulls make money, Bears make money, Hogs go to slaughter.  While that certainly seems to hold true most of the time, we might need to conjure up a new pithy saying when it comes to the investment bank Goldman Sachs. Maybe, Bulls make money, Bears make money, Goldman make Magic.  Yesterday they released 3rd quarter returns and revealed that profits nearly doubled to $3.62 billion, delivering an annualized return of 17.5%.  Not too shabby considering the world was in the grips of a pandemic.  Whenever I see Goldman posting outstanding returns, which does seem to happen regularly, I harken back to 2009 when reporter Matt Taibbi described this company as a “giant vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”  That was probably a bit on the harsh side, but it did seem to stick (no pun intended).  Be that as it may, it would seem that investment banks, as well as the equity market world in which they live, exist in a zone that is detached from much of the rest of the global economy.

Speaking of which, equity markets have evidently forgotten all about the lack of additional fiscal stimulus for now and are working on the third week in a row of advance, moving to within striking distance of the September peak.  Do note that we are witnessing divergence between the price action and the direction of the weekly stochastics, but that has been that case at previous highs as well.  Long term cycles point to a peak for this November so now would not seem to be the time to assume this market is unstoppable.  While I have come to the belief that markets are more concerned with who sits on the board of the Federal Reserve than in the White House, elections, particularly when there is a change in administrations, will tend to upset the apple cart.