Grain > Commentary > 5-31-2024

5/31/2024

May 31, 2024

The markets showed some promise during the overnight session with corn trading steady 3-5 cents higher and soybeans hanging around 11-14 cents higher.  Any signs of life were sucked out of the market with another dull weekly export sales report.  Everything was reported within their expected ranges with 810k tonnes of old crop corn and 329k tonnes of old crop beans sold.  New crop sales totaled 188k tonnes of corn but only 7k tonnes of soybeans.  Over the past 10 years, the USDA's target for new crop soybean sales averages 10% covered.  Today we sit at only 1.9% covered, the lowest percentage since 2001/02.  Price action was also dictated today with month end covering from managed money and spec funds.  Monday could be a different story.  For the month of May, July corn futures were virtually unchanged and July soybeans gained 44 cents.  The monthly move for December corn was down 2 cents and November soybeans picked up 28 cents.

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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
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