Soybeans closed higher on late short covering and pre-weekend technical buying. Contracts were down most of the session on outside market direction and the expected record South American crop. The late gains were limited by those factors and expectations for increased U.S. planted area. Two new estimates were out Friday: Informa Economics pegs 2010 soybean acreage at 78.629 million acres, compared to its January estimate of 77.9 million and the 2009 total of 77.5 million acres, while Allendale Inc. sees beans at a record 79.111 million acres, potentially producing 3.338 billion bushels when using Allendale’s trend line yield of 42.69 bushels per acre. Soybean meal and oil were higher on spillover from beans and short covering. Unknown destinations bought 106,000 tons of 2010/11 U.S. soybeans.
Corn was lower on fund and technical selling, along with profit taking and outside market direction. Corn’s fundamentals are negative, primarily because of the large available supply. Still, May did manage to gain more than $.10 on the week. Losses were limited by continued concerns over early fieldwork and planting delays due to either wet soils or flooding. Allendale Inc. expects 2010 corn planted area to hit 90.152 million acres, the second largest since 1944, which with Allendale’s trend line yield of 160.42 bushels per acre could produce a crop of 13.243 billion bushels, which would be a new record. Informa has this year’s U.S. corn acreage at 88.427 million acres, compared to its January estimate of 89.6 million and the 2009 total of 86.5 million acres. Ethanol futures were lower.
The wheat complex was lower on technical and fund selling, along with the higher dollar. Fundamentals are extremely negative with a very large world supply and poor demand for U.S. wheat. There was just no fresh news or buying interest and contracts also got spillover pressure from corn. European wheat was higher on technical buying and the past week’s purchases of European wheat by Algeria and Tunisia; May Paris was up .8% and May London was 1% higher. Malaysia bought 45,000 tons of U.S. wheat and Japan, in a simultaneous sell-buy-sell transaction, picked up 22,730 tons of food wheat. Informa has 2010 U.S. wheat acreage at 53.655 million acres, compared to 2009’s total of 59.133 million. Allendale projects planted area at 53.467 million acres, the smallest since 1970, potentially producing a crop of 1.983 billion bushels when using Allendale’s trend line yield of 43.54 bushels per acre. Allendale has winter wheat area at 37.172 million acres, durum at 2.567 million and other spring at 13.728 million acres.
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