Market News

Corn, soybeans down, watching weather in Argentina

 

 

Soybeans were modestly lower on profit taking and technical selling. The USDA did raise U.S. ending stocks and Brazil crop production projections, while lowering the production estimate Argentina. Near term, weather should improve in parts of Argentina, but after that, conditions look less certain. There’s still a lot of time left in our marketing year and their growing season. The new estimate from the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange has Argentina’s soybean crop at 50 million tons, 1 million less than their last guess. Week-to-week, March and November beans both posted gains, but March managed to outgain November, reflecting the good near term commercial outlook. Soybean meal was higher and bean oil was lower on the adjustment of product spreads. March meal was up sharply for the week, supported by commercial demand expectations. The volatility of the outside markets didn’t have much of an impact on grains and oilseeds.

Corn was modestly lower on profit taking and technical selling. U.S. ending stocks were lower than expected and long term forecasts for Argentina continue to be questionable. The most recent estimate from the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange has corn at 39 million tons, down 2 million from their prior projection. La Nina conditions are expected to last through at least summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Domestic demand is good and the USDA expects exports to increase, partially because of expected crop loss in Argentina, but 2+ billion bushels is still a lot of corn. In Brazil, development conditions have been relatively better, but second crop planting is being delayed by a slow soybean harvest. Brazil’s second corn crop is the larger of their two crops. For the week, March corn was up fractionally, December was down fractionally. Ethanol futures were lower.

The wheat complex was lower on profit taking and commercial selling, along with the firm dollar. Some forecasts have an improved chance of precipitation in the southwestern Plains over the next several days. Long term weather outlooks are less certain and Chicago and Kansas City are, technically, still in an uptrend, with March contracts posting modest week-to-week gains. March Minneapolis was up fractionally on the week. The USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation bought 43,000 tons of U.S. soft white winter for distribution in Bangladesh. South Korea purchased two 65,000 ton lots of wheat, one from Russia, the other from an optional origin. Pakistan picked up 200,000 tons of wheat from an unknown destination and Indonesia bought 50,000 tons of Black Sea origin wheat. Jordan has a tender for 100,000 tons of optional origin wheat and Egypt is in the market for an unspecified amount of milling wheat.