Grain markets are mixed to close:
Corn + ¼ cents/bu (Sept @ 3.15 ¾ )
Soybeans + ¼ cents/bu (Aug @ 8.91 ¾ )
Chi Wheat -3 ¼ cents/bu (Sept @ 5.29 ½ )
Cdn $ -0.00430 (74.40 cents)
WTI Crude Oil -1.35/barrel (39.92)
As mentioned in the midday, the highlight of the market today was yet another large corn sale. Corn prices are only slightly higher today despite China purchasing 1,937,000mt of corn for 2020/21 delivery, and unknown destinations buying 130,000mt of 2020/21 corn. That’s a total of 81.4 million bushels of corn. This was the 3rd largest overnight corn sale. The corn markets are really not significantly reflective of the fact that we have had two single corn sales make the top 5 largest sales list in the past two weeks.
The weekly export report was released this morning. Old crop corn and soybean numbers were very disappointing, while new crop soybean values were outstanding. The USDA had already confirmed the sale of 800,000mt of beans to China as part of their daily flash reporting system, but more smaller sales were clearly in action as the total number was much larger than expected. New crop commitments by China are 8 million mt ahead of a year ago, and over double of the last 5 years on this week. Wheat also performed above estimates, however, not enough to push futures positive.
| In Thousand Tonnes | Actual | Estimates | Last Week | Last Year |
| 2019/20 Corn 2020/21 Corn | -29.3 638.7 | 200 - 550 400 - 1000 | 220.6 2327.2 | 143.0 129.6 |
| 2019/20 Soybeans 2020/21 Soybeans | 257.8 3344.2 | 300 – 500 1500 - 2000 | 365.2 2300.5 | 143.1 305.5 |
| 2020/21 Wheat | 676.6 | 250 - 650 | 616.7 | 383.0 |
The Russian ruble fell to 2-month lows against the USD today, making their wheat values increasingly more competitive.
Funds were estimated to be mixed with corn thought to have bought 1,000 contracts (short 18,000), soybeans expected to have bought 1,000 contracts (long 72,000), and Chi. Wheat was estimated to have sold 3,000 contracts (long 2,000).