Market News

Corn up, soybeans mostly weak, watching weather

Soybeans were steady to weak on profit taking and technical selling. Parts of the Midwest are expected to see more rain over the next few days, which would mean a slower corn planting pace and a possible increase in bean acres. Contracts were up early, but unable to follow through. ABIOVE, Brazil’s vegetable oils group, raised its production estimate to 112.5 million tons, and export guess to 61.7 million tons. Soybean meal was lower and bean oil was higher on the adjustment of product spreads.

Corn was modestly higher on commercial and technical buying. Corn’s also watching the weather with forecasts calling for more rain and cooler temperatures in parts of the region. That’d cause at least some delay in planting and could slow down emergence in some areas. Ethanol futures were lower. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says ethanol production last week averaged 1.027 million barrels per day, up 21,000 on the week. Stocks were reported at 23.414 million barrels, up 359,000 tons and the second highest on record.

The wheat complex was modestly higher on short covering and technical buying. The trade’s concerned about possible new damage to winter wheat in parts of the Plains. Also, the dollar on Wednesday hit its lowest level since the Presidential election, which does help export competition. DTN says Egypt bought two cargoes of U.S. hard red winter wheat, but the complex closed below session highs because of supply pressure. Jordan is tendering for 100,000 tons of milling wheat and Iraq is in the market for 50,000 tons.