Grain > Commentary > 3-4-2024

3/4/2024

Mar 04, 2024

Resistance held on corn's first test of the 20-day moving average but we still end Monday with small gains in corn and soybeans.  Soybeans made a lateral jump across their 10-day moving average and held in the green to finish 3-6 cents higher.  Higher closes of any kind are nice to see but it was tough to get excited when soybeans easily fell back off of double-digit higher trade.  Market sentiment for corn is shifting.  For the past 3 months, the easy position to take was going short but now most are viewing that as the higher risk position.  Also, funds were net buyers of corn last week.  If we are able to manufacture a bounce, corn near 450'0 on the May contract looks like a solid target.  The USDA confirmed two sales this morning: 110,000 tonnes of corn to Taiwan for delivery in 2023/24 and 126,000 tonnes of soymeal to unknown split between 2023/24 and 2024/25.  Export inspections for soybeans were above average last week, totaling 1.021 mln tonnes.  This was a nice bump in the total shipment pace for soybeans which now stands at a 4-million-bushel deficit versus 17 million last week.  Corn shipments were reported at 1.084 mln tonnes.  Corn shipment pace remained unchanged at a 27-million-bushel surplus.

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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...