Traders shift focus to South America

With harvest in the U.S. surpassing the halfway mark in recent days, market participants in the CBOT corn and soybean futures markets are turning their attention to the Southern Hemisphere. 

Specifically, they are turning to South America, which accounts for more than 15% of the world's corn production and more than 55% of the world's soybean production.

Most of the day-to-day price action in the markets is still presumably dominated by U.S. farmers/elevators hedging new bushels coming out of the field. However, more forward-thinking traders have likely already shifted their sights elsewhere. They see the next best chance at a tradable, supply-based move coming from potential production problems, primarily out of either Brazil or Argentina.

The aforementioned countries are expected to produce a combined corn crop of 178 million...