Grain > Commentary > 3-10-2021

3/10/2021

Mar 10, 2021

3/10/2021
Largely weaker trade on smaller volume in both sessions as long liquidation continued following what some see as an underwhelming WASDE report yesterday. Today's trade is mostly a continuance from the past 5 weeks; big daily ranges in both corn and beans working inside the larger, established ranges. Ethanol production for the week ending March 5, 2021 returned to pre-winter storm levels at 938,000 barrels/day. Ethanol usage for the week was also one of the best over the past 12 months. Basis has been firming consistently since mid-January even with ethanol production somewhat side-lined. The recent rally in crude oil has made ethanol more attractive and it would not take a very big improvement in ethanol margins to see plants ramp up production and make a push for corn coverage and, as a result, further strengthening basis in the western corn belt. The biggest news today was the Rosario Grain Exchange cutting the Argentina soybean production forecast from 49 million tonnes down to 45 million tonnes (146.6 million bushels). Given the USDA left their Argentina soybean production unchanged at 47.5 million tonnes in the report yesterday, the market did not react to this information at all. Despite the wind and cold, I am thankful for the Mother Nature bringing us some much needed moisture today.

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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...