Grain > Commentary > 3-21-2024

3/21/2024

Mar 21, 2024

Grains popped big just after the overnight session opened.  Corn and soybeans chased to fresh highs for the move but quickly retreated.  Trade managed to hold on to some okay gains of 1-2 cents in corn and wheat and 2-4 cents in soybeans but were all well off of their highs.  A close higher of any kind after seeing that type of sell-off is an accomplishment.  We were also very close to hitting some pre-acres report price targets last night and the price action we experienced today is a prime example of why sell orders need to be working.  Given current Murdock basis: $4.05-4.10 cash corn, new crop corn at $4.25 or a Dec HTA between 480 and 485 futures.  Cash soybeans at $11.50-11.60, new crop soybeans at $11.50-11.70 or a Nov HTA between 1220-1240.  Weekly net export sales were mid-range for corn and soybeans with 1.186 mln tonnes of corn sold and 494k tonnes of soybeans sold last week.  As expected, wheat was a net cancellation of 110k tonnes.

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...