Grain > Commentary > 2-20-2024

2/20/2024

Feb 20, 2024

Soybeans gapped higher on the Sunday night open and a portion of those gaps remained open on the charts at the close on Monday.  Price action in corn was interesting to those who paid attention and it was a good little test for both sides.  After trading out to 5 higher, corn fell back to 3 lower before finding another bid and pushing back to end the day 2-3 cents higher.  We had two flash sale announcements from the USDA this morning.  First: 155,000 tonnes of corn for delivery to Japan in 2024/25; secondly: 228,000 tonnes of soybean meal for delivery to the Philippines in the 2023/24.  The weekly export inspections were in right in line with expectations.  Corn shipments totaled 919k tonnes last week, increasing corn's pace to 15 a million-bushel surplus over the USDA target.  Soybean inspections came in at 1.186 mln tonnes which improved their shipment pace from a 25-million-bushel deficit to a 22-million-bushel deficit.  We are starting to see some positive sentiment make its way into the market after the past two trading sessions but we need to some follow-through buying this week to create the foundation for a rally.

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3/31/2025
Mar 31, 2025
USDA reported corn planting acres at 95.326 million acres of corn, which would be up a little more than 5% from 2024's final number and the second highest March figure of the last ten years behind only 2020's estimate of 96.99 mil acres.  US corn stocks as of March 1st were seen at 81.51 billion bushels, which was exactly what the trade had expected and was down just over 2% from March 1 of 2024.  USDA said farmers intended to plant 83.495 million acres of soybeans, which would be down about 4% from last year and was just a hair smaller than what the trade was looking for.  March 1 soybean stocks were pegged at 1.91 billion bu's, which again was nearly exactly as the trade had expected, and was up 3.5% compared to March 1, 2024.
3/11/2025
Mar 11, 2025
The monthly USDA WASDE report was today and it was about as boring as it can get.  The USDA took the month off leaving corn and beans carryouts unchanged.  Corn remains at 1.540 billion bushels and beans at 380 million bushels.  World ending stocks were slightly lowered on both corn and beans.  World corn was pegged at 288.94 million tonnes vs 290.3 million tonnes previously.  World beans were pegged at 121.4 million tonnes vs 124.3 million tonnes previously.  All of the South American crop production estimates were also left unchanged.  
8/30/2024
Aug 30, 2024
Corn picks up 10 cents and soybeans improve just over 25 cents on the week to go into the holiday weekend on a positive note.  Soybean export sales have picked up the pace in a big way.  At the end of last week, sales...