Grain futures are mixed at midday:
Corn -4 1/4 cents/bu (May @ 5.89 3/4)
Soybeans + 6 1/4 cents/bu (May @ 14.16 1/4)
Chi Wheat + 4 1/2 cents/bu (May @ 6.52 1/2)
Cdn $ -0.00130 (79.72 cents)
WTI Crude Oil +0.11/barrel (63.26)
Grains are mixed at midday after the two reports, but not as volatile as we have seen lately.
This morning we saw USDA Weekly Export Sales Report for the week ending April 8, 2021. Values are shown in thousand tonnes, and the results were disappointing overall. China cancelled a bit of corn, one cargo of soybeans, and 2 cargoes of new crop wheat. They did however buy 264,000mt of new crop soybeans, and 620,000 mt of old-crop sorghum and 65,000mt of new crop.
The NOPA crush numbers were released today as well, and showed March 2021 soybean crush at 177.984 million bushels. This is down 2% from 2020, and below the average trade guess of 179.179 million bushels (the trade range was as wide as 15 million bushels though). This is still a big bounce back from the February crush numbers that were adversely affected by the Texas storm. Soyoil stocks are shown at 1.771 billion bushels, up from February, and below the average trade guess of 1.822 billion bushels. Soymeal exports were shown at 937,000 mt, down 4% from Mar 2020.
The Canadian dollar has once again cracked the 80 cent plateau this morning, before falling lower at midday. The weaker US dollar is positive for grain futures appreciation, but the stronger Loonie will put pressure on grain basis levels if it continues to appreciate in value.
The USA southern plains saw decent rains yesterday, with the rest of the plains expected to see moisture over the next couple of days. The Midwest was mostly dry, but the big weather story is the fact that temperatures are expected to stay much below normal for the balance of April, delaying early crop development. The drought monitor is showing some improvements to the upper Midwest after some needed precipitation. Argentina was dry yesterday, but should see some rains develop this weekend and through the beginning of next week. Brazilian rains look to be confined to northern areas, with dryness continuing to build in central/southern geographies.