The Magic Numbers

Here's today's all important scores on the doors from our old inept buddies, the USDA:

June Acreage (million acres):
USDA Jun Avg Est Range Mar USDA 2009
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Soybeans 78.868 78.183 76.528-78.900 78.100 77.500
Corn 87.872 89.229 88.100-90.153 88.800 86.500
All wheat 54.305 53.825 53.500-54.087 53.800 59.133
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June 1st Stocks (billion bushels):
Soybeans 0.571 0.594 0.580-0.620 1.270 0.596
Corn 4.310 4.598 4.459-4.784 7.694 4.261
Wheat 0.973 0.940 0.929-0.950 1.352 0.657
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Miss Tibbs appears to have thrown her darts a bit on the low side when it comes to those corn acres, almost one and a half million below the average trade guess and almost a quarter of a million beneath the lowest trade estimate.

Bean acres came in right at the top end of trade estimates, whilst wheat acres came in half a million higher than anticipated, and above the upper estimate.

At least the shortfall in corn is balanced by the increases in beans and wheat, so the numbers do still "add up", unlike last season when the June numbers were all uniformly higher than anticipated across the board.

Old crop bean and corn stocks are a bit lower than the average trade guess. That doesn't surprise me too much given the pace of exports of late.

What the bare figures above don't show either is the harvested acres estimates, for corn these are 81.005 million, a hefty 6.8 million below the planted area. Whereas for beans the estimated harvested area is less than a million acres below that planted at 77.986 million.

Check out oats too: planted 3.176 million (the lowest on record), harvested 1.315 million.

Early calls are all over the place, but corn likley to lead the way higher, some are saying 20-30 up on corn, 10-15 up on beans, 5-10 up on wheat. I'll forecast 15-20 up on corn, 5 up on beans and flat to 2 lower wheat.