Corn, winter wheat down on profit taking

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Corn, winter wheat down on profit taking

Soybeans were mixed on spread adjustments, with nearby contracts modestly lower. The USDA’s national good to excellent rating for beans was down 2% on the week, including an 8% drop in Iowa. Several million acres of key U.S. cropland were damaged by last week’s derecho, but the full impact of the storm might not be evident until harvest wraps up. There is some potential for crop stress in some areas because of mostly dry weather during key phases of development. Unknown destinations bought 130,000 tons of new crop U.S. beans the first sale announced this week. The recent strong demand for new crop beans has centered mostly around China, but China is also buying beans from Brazil as a hedge against the political tensions with the U.S. Soybean meal was lower and bean oil was higher on the adjustment of product spreads.

Corn was modestly lower on profit taking and technical selling, but most months did manage to hold above support levels. Corn gave back some gains after a 2% week to week loss in the national good to excellent rating, with a 10% decline for Iowa’s corn crop ahead of a resurvey by the USDA. The USDA is predicting a big corn crop, but the projection is expected to come down at least somewhat on September 11th. While some private crop tours have reported good results, most of those have yet to get to the areas hardest hit by the derecho. China bought 195,000 tons of U.S. corn and unknown picked up 130,000 tons, all new crop. The new marketing year for corn gets underway September 1st. Ethanol futures were lower. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s weekly ethanol production and supply numbers are out Wednesday.

The wheat complex was mixed, mostly lower. Chicago and Kansas City were down, watching the tail end of the winter wheat harvest. Minneapolis closed modestly higher on a lower condition rating and slower than average harvest pace for spring wheat. The trade is also monitoring U.S. conditions ahead of winter wheat planting, including dry conditions and high heat in some areas, along with dry weather in parts of Russia and potential frost in northern Argentina. IKAR raised its projection for Russia’s wheat crop at 82 million tons, up 1 million from the previous guess and 4 million more than what the USDA is currently expecting. Ukraine has set the cap for 2020/21 wheat exports at 17.5 million tons.

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