CORN
- Corn is trading lower at midday after a reversal off yesterday’s highs. This has May corn on track for only a slight gain on the week. Prices did not respond to a reported flash sale of corn to Mexico and are now below the 40-day moving average.
- This morning, the USDA reported a flash sale of 263,000 metric tons of corn to Mexico. 173,000 metric tons of that amount were for 23/24 and the other 90,000 mt were for 24/25.
- Estimates for Argentinian corn production were lowered by the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange yesterday by 2.5 mmt to 54.0 mmt due to the February heat wave and damage from the spiroplasma bacteria, carried by the maize leafhopper insect. Harvest is estimated at 3.7% complete.
SOYBEANS
- Soybeans are trading sharply lower to end the week and are back below the 50-day moving average in the May contract. Soybeans are now set for a small loss on the week. Both soybean meal and oil are lower with pressure from lower palm oil futures.
- The Brazilian soybean harvest is expected to be 70% complete by this weekend and some work could be delayed due to rain. In Argentina, soybean crop ratings came in with 31% rated good to excellent and 16% rated poor to very poor.
- Drought is threatening the water levels on the Mississippi River for a third year. Barge shipments have fallen to 464k tons in the week ending March 16 from 593k tons the previous week. Soybean shipments were down 25% from last week.
WHEAT
- All three wheat classes are trading higher after finding support near this morning’s lows. All three classes are on track to show gains for the week. Yesterday’s net export sales cancellations were expected but not encouraging.
- SovEcon has raised its estimate for the 2024 Russian wheat crop by 400k tons to 94 mmt due to a lack of winter damage and a sufficient amount of moisture reserves.
- Yesterday, Egypt’s GASC purchased 110,000 metric tons of wheat and bought one cargo each of Bulgarian and Romanian wheat.
Author
Amanda Brill