December Corn Closes Below $5

• July CBOT corn futures shed 31-3/4 cents this week to close at 554-1/2.
• December CBOT corn futures shed 9 cents this week to close at 499-3/4.
• Chinese corn imports in the first four months of 2023 were down 8% from the same period last year. With the insert of Brazilian corn to China in 2023, US corn exports to China in February and March of 2023 were 90 percent lower than February and March of 2022.
• Above normal temperatures and little to no rainfall are forecast for the majority of the I-states over the next 10 days. This should allow planting to progress in areas that have been too wet up to this point and promote crop growth in already planted areas.
• For the third week in the last four new crop corn futures ended the week in extremely oversold condition. This was the first weekly close below $5 for December continuous corn futures since the first full week of April 2021.

Soybeans Fall Sharply for Second Week

• November CBOT soybean futures shed 48-1/4 cents today to close at 1175-1/2.
• The Buenos Aries grain exchange this week cut Argentina’s 22/23 harvest of soybeans to 21 million tons from 22.5 million in their last estimate. The USDA last week left its estimate of Argentina’s soybean crop unchanged at 27 million tons.
• This was the first close for November continuous soybean futures below $12 since November of 2021.
• Soybean sales came in at 16,950 tons for the 2022/23 marketing year and 663,801 for 2023/24 for a total of 680,751. This was up from 112,222 the previous week and the highest since March 9.
• The market remains extremely oversold and with the 80 cent slide from the last COT positioning report was measured, the net spec and fund long in soybeans should be approaching the vicinity of the lowest levels in 18 months.

Wheat Lower This Week

• July CBOT wheat futures shed 30 cents this week to close at 605.
• July KCBOT wheat futures shed 52-3/4 cents this week to close at 824-1/4.
• July MGEX wheat futures shed 40 cents this week to close at 806.
• The extension of the Black Sea grain deal this week brought wheat sellers to the market. Russia warned it will terminate the deal after July 17^th if restrictions on Russia are not eased and other concessions for the shipment of Russian grains and fertilizers aren’t met.
• Spring wheat plantings rose to 40% complete as of this week, North Dakota still has about 4.2 million acres of spring wheat yet to seed. May 31 is the final crop insurance planting date for North Dakota.
• For the month of April, China imported 1.68 million tons of wheat, up 141% from a year ago. Year to date imports have reached 6.03 million tons, up 60.9% from a year ago.

Milk Markets End Skid Lower

• The spot cheese trade gained over 3 cents today and likely was the catalyst for green on the board in Class III.
• Milk production for April was higher YoY by 0.33% while the dairy herd size and production per cow were in line with last years numbers.
• Cattle and calves on feed were 3% below numbers from May 1st of last year; placements in April totaled 1.75 million which is 4% below last years total.