The classic good news/bad news story played itself out Monday in the CBOT corn pit. Digesting the Agriculture Department's latest quarterly acreage report, corn futures gapped lower into limit-down territory, below $7.25 a bushel.

We're in prime USDA report season, the seeds are going in the ground and investors are waffling.

• Aftermath of the prospective plantings report
• Crop progress and the biofuels update
• The rice crisis

Among bull markets, corn is still a king. Other agricultural commodities may be swooning, but corn's holding its own. May CBOT futures are up nearly 38% year to date.

According to this month's Producer Price Index, Street prognosticators are pretty good at predicting inflation. Except when it comes to food and energy, that is.

Starbucks has been a pretty terrible place to be lately. But don’t blame the poor Arabica bean.

• Coffee 101
• The China connection
• Is Starbucks’ stock correlated with coffee prices?

You either love Jim Cramer or you hate him. Whether his antics on CNBC's "Mad Money" do anything to alleviate boredom on the trip between Wall Street and Main Street, I'll leave to you to decide.

Will the U.S. find future prosperity in selling low-tech commodities abroad to countries manufacturing high-tech products?

• The situation with sugar indicates otherwise
• A global sugar surplus continues
• Stiff competition from other countries