Market News

Corn, soybeans, wheat bounce back a little

 

Soybeans were modestly higher on light commercial and technical buying. Contracts bounced back from some of the recent weakness, watching South America. Near term forecasts have at least some increase in rainfall in dry parts of Argentina, but the longer term outlooks are uncertain and a drier pattern would fit with the current La Nina pattern. It’s early in the South American growing season, roughly the equivalent of mid-June. The next official USDA South American production estimate is out in January, along with the final 2017 U.S. production totals. Soybean meal was higher and bean oil was lower, adjusting product spreads.

Corn was modestly higher in low trade volume on commercial and technical buying. Corn also bounced back a bit while keeping an eye on weather in South America. The USDA did lower ending stocks Tuesday on a bigger ethanol use projection, but 50 million bushels is a small percentage and 2.5 billion bushels is still a lot of corn. Corn’s a little more than a quarter into the marketing year, with new stocks data out in January. Ethanol futures were steady to mostly firm. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says ethanol production last week was the second highest on record, while stocks were down on the week.

The wheat complex was modestly higher on light commercial and technical buying. The supply and demand update reiterated the bearish fundamentals, but there’s buying interest near these price levels. Weekly export sales numbers out Thursday are expected to bearish. Winter wheat acreage numbers are out in January. Total domestic acreage for all types of wheat is expected to a record low. Egypt bought 235,000 tons of wheat from Russia and 60,000 tons from Romania. Japan is tendering for 147,696 tons of food wheat from the U.S, Australia, and/or Canada, while Iraq is in the market for 50,000 tons of wheat, also from the U.S., Australia, and/or Canada.