Market News
More demand support for soybeans, corn, wheat
Soybeans were higher on commercial and technical buying, including another new contract high for the November. Weekly export numbers were bullish and China and unknown destinations bought more U.S. 2020/21 soybeans, 264,000 and 360,500 tons respectively, the 10th business day in a row with a new sale. That brings the running total to 4,143,500 tons. Beans are watching late U.S. development weather and early harvest activity. The week to week improvement in drought conditions for parts of Illinois will ease stress and could help yields stabilize or even improve a little. Soybean meal was sharply higher on commercial buying, while bean oil was mixed, consolidating. Weekly export numbers for soybean products were bearish with just about two weeks left in the 2019/20 marketing year. The trade is also monitoring conditions for fieldwork and early planting activity in Argentina and Brazil.
Corn was higher on commercial and technical buying. Corn is keeping an eye on the expanding harvest activity and yield results in key U.S. growing areas. Drought conditions have eased in parts of the Corn Belt, but too late to make much of a difference for most of the crop. The USDA did trim the 2020 yield and harvested area estimates in the most recent round of supply and demand projections, with the next set of numbers out October 9th. Unknown destinations purchased 120,000 tons of 2020/21 U.S. corn, while the weekly export numbers were neutral, featuring good sales against slow shipments. China was a big buyer of U.S. corn last week and has already purchased more than what the USDA is projecting for the entirety of the marketing year, but those sales will still need to be shipped. Beijing says it will leave its 2021 low tariff import quota for corn at 7.2 million tons, 60% of that for companies owned by the state. Ethanol futures were higher. Strategie Grains cut its outlook for the European Union’s corn crop to 64.9 million tons, down 2.5 million from the last guess.
The wheat complex was higher on commercial and technical buying. The U.S. missed out on a couple of major recent export tenders, but the weekly numbers were solid and the dollar was down during the session, helping U.S. wheat compete on the world market. The trade is watching dry weather in parts of the Black Sea region, which could limit winter wheat planting in Russia and Ukraine. Parts of Argentina are dry as well and there are concerns about dry conditions in parts of the U.S. Plains limiting domestic planted area. China is leaving its 2021 low tariff import quota for wheat at 9.636 million tons, 90% of that allocated to state owned companies. DTN says Egypt bought 235,000 tons of wheat from Poland and Russia and Jordan purchased 120,000 tons of milling wheat from an unknown origin, while Japan picked up 104,870 tons of food wheat from the U.S., Canada, and Australia and South Korea bought 38,300 tons of milling wheat from the U.S. and Canada. France’s AgriMer has lowered the 2020/21 non-European Union soft wheat export projection to 6.6 million tons, which would be less than half of the 2019/20 total.
