Grains are mixed at midday:

Corn + 2 ¾ cents/bu (May @ 5.57)

Soybeans – 12 1/4 cents/bu (May @ 14.06 1/2)

Chi Wheat + 2 cents/bu (May @ 6.17 1/2)

Cdn $ -0.00245 (79.265 cents)

WTI Crude Oil -1.10/barrel (58.23)

Agribusiness consultancy Agroconsult reported Brazilian farmers will harvest an estimated 137.1 MMT of soybeans. This would be a record volume, and is unexpected because of the weather-related challenges the country has faced. In contrast, it is reported that some co-ops in Paraná talking about 28% reduction in soybean yields. Who is correct? Private analyst are also starting to cut back Brazil’s corn crop size on lack of moisture and late planting.

The USDA report out Friday and the market is looking for them to adjust ending stocks of corn and soybeans lower. Whether this is already priced into the markets, and whether the change does occur are two unanswered questions. Only time will tell….

The EIA report was released this morning and showed commercial crude oil stocks down 3.5 million barrels to 498.3 million barrels. Ethanol stocks were also down 500,000 barrels to 20.6 million barrels. Ethanol production is up 10 thousand barrels a day to 975 thousand barrels a day.

For the month of February, it was reported that the USA exported 6.3 million tonnes (248 million bushels) of corn. This beats the February record from 2008 of 5.4 million mt. This is 59% higher than the 5 year February average, and only 18% of the exports went to China. Soybean exports for the month were pegged at 4.56 million mt (168 million bushels). This is 5% higher than the 5 year February average, and 30% of the shipments were headed to China. This amounts to 1.39 million mt (51 million bu) of soybeans to China in February, the second lowest for the month since 2004. These numbers actually reflect a record February volume that went to non-China buyers.