Market News

Down day for soybeans, corn, wheat

Soybeans were lower on fund and technical selling, falling to multi-month lows. Soybeans are watching harvest activity in Brazil and a drier near-term forecast for parts of southern Brazil and Argentina. Domestic crush margins are solid, but export demand continues to be slow with weekly sales numbers out Thursday morning. Brazil remains in control of the world soybean market, with prices more than a dollar below U.S. prices, and Argentina is expected to resume its role as the leading exporter of soybean products thanks to a much bigger crop. That, along with fund and technical selling, sent soybean meal and oil futures lower. There was also some position squaring ahead of Thursday’s NOPA member crush report. Additionally, the USDA’s Ag Outlook Forum starts Thursday, continuing through Friday.

Corn was lower on fund and technical selling, establishing another round of contract lows. Corn is monitoring development weather in Argentina and second crop planting in Brazil. The USDA will update supply, demand, and production estimates March 8^th and CONAB’s new outlook for Brazil is set for March 12^th. The trade also has an eye on U.S. conditions ahead of planting. Ethanol and export demand are good, but corn is looking at a large domestic supply. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says ethanol production last week was a seven-week high, averaging 1.083 million barrels a day, up 50,000 from the previous week and 69,000 from a year ago, while stocks were a three-week high at 25.81 million barrels, an increase of 1.031 million on the week and 471,000 on the year. Egypt bought 120,000 tons of corn from Ukraine.

The wheat complex was lower on fund and technical selling, with March Kansas City and Minneapolis hitting fresh contract lows. World wheat prices have dropped again over the past week with the lowest in Russia and Ukraine. That’s included a drop in Paris milling wheat, even with lower planted area in France due to weather issues, as the European Union is also being impacted by Russia’s dominance of the global market. The European Commission says soft wheat exports since the start of the marketing year July 1^st are 18.6 million tons, compared to 20.2 million this time last year. Near-term U.S. winter wheat conditions look dry, but still mostly favorable, especially when compared to the last few years.