Market News
Corn finds support as weather concerns continue
Soybeans appeared to ignore the very hot and dry weather across much of the Corn Belt and closed mixed on Tuesday. While spending most of the day mostly lower, there was a rally at the end of the day. The USDA announced another sale of soybeans for the current marketing year, with sales in the last week totaling just over 57 million bushels. The spike in demand can be tied to a combination of value buying by end users and those end users trying to make sure they got the needed supplies in hand ahead of the U.S. harvest and widespread planting in Argentina and Brazil. Soybean meal and soybean oil both ended the day lower. There are expectations that soybean yields will hit closer to 50 bushels per acre, off slightly from early-season projections.
Corn futures were mostly higher as hot, dry weather continues to threaten late-season crop conditions. Ethanol crush margins have improved, but export demand remains sluggish for US corn. The market continues to watch any progress on a renewal of the Black Sea grain corridor, but no progress has been reported. Brazil’s second-crop corn harvest is 88% complete, but heavy rains could delay harvest even further. The USDA’s updated yield and acreage numbers are out on the 12th and CONAB’s updated outlook comes out on Wednesday.
The wheat complex was mixed, mostly higher. The meeting on renewing the Black Sea Grain Initiative yielded little progress and Russia hasn’t pulled back on its attacks. However, the higher US Dollar Index has US wheat at a competitive disadvantage. Spring wheat yields have been better than expected in parts of the northern U.S. Plains, which should offset some of the anticipated losses in the Canadian Prairies. Weather issues in Argentina and Australia and possible quality issues in the European Union were non-issues.
