Market News

Weather remains big factor for grains, oilseeds

Soybeans were mostly lower, adjusting old crop/new crop spreads. Chinese demand continues to be strong and unknown and Vietnam both bought new crop U.S. bean meal. Unknown purchased 225,000 tons and Vietnam bought 180,000 tons, while unknown also picked up 20,000 tons of 2014/15 soybean oil. Still, with the crop in great shape, the fundamental outlook for new crop remains bearish, sending November to a new contract low. Soybean oil was mixed, adjusting old crop/new crop spreads, and bean oil was lower on spillover from crude oil.

Corn was lower on fund and technical selling. Contracts saw an early bounce, but couldn’t follow through, also looking at negative fundamentals, pushing December to a new contract low. At this point, the biggest question in corn is just how high this year’s yield will be. There’s a lot of talk that it may hit 170 bushels per acre. USDA’s first survey based production projection is out in August. Ethanol futures were higher.

The wheat complex was lower on fund and technical selling, along with the mostly higher dollar. 75% of the winter crop is harvested and while there’s some rain in the forecast, major delays aren’t expected. 70% of spring wheat’s rated good to excellent, with non-threatening weather in the forecast. Overall, the fundamentals remain bearish, primarily due to the large world crop and good global growing conditions.