Grain > Commentary > 2-7-2024

2/7/2024

Feb 07, 2024

A very defensive trading session just ahead of tomorrow's fresh CONAB and USDA WASDE and reports. Corn shot to fresh lows overnight and soybeans traded down 20 cents before recovering slightly. Trade cited significant rainfall that materialized in Argentina on Tuesday night was perfectly timed behind some extremely hot temperatures last week. This was enough for the funds to pile on some more short positions. The market has given us some solid looks and setups for a turn-around but there just has not been anything to spark a rally. Weekly ethanol production was up 42,000 barrels/day to 1.033 mln bbls. Ethanol stocks also increased by 500k barrels last week. There is some good coming out of the lower trending markets as it appears the supply/demand relationship is doing its job for corn. Corn use for ethanol is currently exceeding the pace needed to meet the USDA forecast by 65 million bushels and an on-going bull market in cattle continues to encourage the feeding of corn. Along with that, export volume is okay. The USDA corn balance sheet will need time to reflect this but there is real potential that our current ending stocks of 2.162 bln bu could erode below 2.0.

Tomorrow’s report could create an important move for soybeans. The market has a chance to right the ship and get a foothold above $12 or break out lower to test the contract lows from June.

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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...