Grains are higher at midday:
Dec Corn + 10 ½ cents/bu (5.27 ¼ )
Nov Soybeans + 11 ½ cents/bu (12.17 ¾ )
Dec Chi Wheat + 12 cents/bu (7.37 )
Cdn $ -0.00160 (80.69 cents)
WTI Crude Oil +0.72/barrel (82.03)
This morning, the USDA confirmed Flash Export Sales of soybeans as follows (representing a total of 31.4 million bushels):
- 396,000 tonnes to Unknown Destinations
- 326,750 tonnes to Unknown Destinations
- 132,000 tonnes to China
The USDA Weekly Export Sales Report showed decent sales volumes overall, either at the high end of expectations, or in the case of wheat above the highest guess. China bought a total of 640,000 tonnes of soybeans last week, while Mexico bought a total of 790,000 tonnes of corn. Sales data is listed below (in thousands of tonnes):
The National Oilseed Processor Association released their Sept 2021 US soybean crush report this morning, with total crush coming in slightly below the average trade guess. September’s crush was 7.7 million bushels lower than Sept 2020’s total (Sept is the first month of the 2021/22 marketing year), with the USDA actually looking for a 49 million bushel increase in overall soybean crush.
Corn had a stronger session to finish out the week, again in moderate trade volumes. The recent slide in Chicago corn futures has made USA corn more price competitive on the global stage, but to date, new recent export business has been largely confined to Mexican and western hemisphere buyers. High ocean freight rates continue to give a price advantage to Ukrainian corn when trying to access Asian markets.
Wheat prices firmed today in light trading volumes. New speculative long money is entering the market following the two week slide in prices, and the higher grain complex coupled with higher outside markets meant wheat looked like a buy today. The Minneapolis December Hard Red Spring contract set a new life of contract high today at 9.80 per bushel, which was supportive to Kansas City and Chicago wheat futures.
After the close of trading today, the CFTC released their weekly report on fund positions in commodities. Today’s data showed that, as of Tuesday, Oct 12th, funds were less long corn than expected by 13,000 contracts, funds were longer soybeans than expected by 9,000 contracts, and funds were shorter Chicago wheat than expected by 7,000 contracts. On the day today, funds were believed to have buyers across the board, picking up 8,000 corn futures (now long an estimated 215,000 contracts), 6,000 soybean futures (now long an estimated 31,000 contracts) and 6,000 Chicago wheat futures (now short and estimated 8,000 contracts).