Grains are mixed at midday:
Corn + 1 ¾ cents/bu (Dec @ 4.15 ½ )
Soybeans + 4 cents/bu (Nov @ 10.76 )
Chi Wheat – 6 ¼ cents/bu (Dec @ 6.23 ½ )
Cdn $ -0.00025 (76.140 cents)
WTI Crude Oil +0.66/barrel (40.69)
Volatility remains front and center in grain futures trading on Thursday, as we have seen both corn and soybeans start the day in negative territory, only to see corn and bean futures rally to new highs for the recent move, before seeing those row crops pull back from those highs as we got to the noon hour. There is something for everyone in market news today, as USA exports sales continue to build, while rains are falling in global geographies where they are needed most.
This morning, the USDA released their Weekly Export Sales Report, and it provided better than expected corn and soybean sales, while wheat sales last week proved to be right in the middle of analyst estimates. China accounted for 1.22 million tonnes of the soybeans sold out of the USA last week (55%). Japan and Mexico were the biggest corn buyers @ 490,000 tonnes and 377,000 tonnes respectively. Actual sales data is listed below (in thousands of tonnes):
Also this morning, the USDA reported Flash Daily Sales of the following grains:
- 152,404 tonnes of soybeans to Mexico
- 132,000 tonnes of soybeans to Unknown
- 130,000 tonnes of wheat to South Korea
Grains have rallied on expectations for USA carry out stocks to drop because of the ongoing brisk pace of export sales of grains. This morning’s USDA announcements were all the fuel that speculators needed to come back to the market with a buying vengeance. At one point this morning, November bean futures traded up to 10.85/bu, while December corn futures traded up to 4.19/bu.
Wheat has struggled all day, as USA weather forecasts are calling for excellent rains for the southern Plains, which would be a Godsend to the hard red winter wheat crop, which has been parched for many weeks. Wheat markets in general have been overbought on the recent rally, so a pullback on better weather is not a surprise.