Grain > Commentary > 3-12-2024

3/12/2024

Mar 12, 2024

A very positive day in the grain markets. Corn was trading 4 cents higher when it met the the expected selling at the 50-day moving average but still managed to finish unchanged on the day. Soybeans were strong for most of the day and traded up to 17 cents higher at one point. It was a bit of an up-and-down ride throughout the session but beans held on for healthy gains of 12-14 cents. Today's trade was highlighted by a fresh report from Brazil's CONAB which has been steadily shrinking their Brazil crop production forecast over the past few months. CONAB is now showing 146.9 mmt of soybeans produced versus the USDA's 155.0 mmt (-8.1, about 297 million bushels). CONAB's Brazil corn crop is forecasted at 112.7 mmt versus the USDA's 124.0 (-11.3, about 444 million bushels). Corn has now rallied as much as 37 cents and soybeans have bounced as much as 68 cents off of what is expected to some major lows on the charts. This all can change fast. Seasonal trends are expected to be a big player in this year's market and we need to have sell orders working.

Read More News

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...