USDA Exports Sales: Wheat And Soybeans Shine

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 14:00 | Categorized as

07/03/13 -- What seems like the first bit of good news for wheat in weeks came with the release of today's USDA weekly export sales report showing that a slump to 8-month price lows may finally be stimulating some buying interest.

Sales of 618,100 MT of old crop and 210,000 MT of new crop comfortably beat trade forecasts for sales of a combined 300-600 TMT. Unknown destinations (128,400 MT) and Egypt (116,500 MT) were the two largest old crop buyers. China also showed up taking 60,400 MT of the old crop too.

Not to be outdone, soybean sales of 392,000 MT of old crop and 990,600 MT of new crop were also well ahead of expectations of a combined 700 TMT to 1.1 MMT. Catching the eye were sales of 130,100 MT of old crop to the Netherlands along with 114,900 MT for Mexico and 91,900 MT to China. That latter took almost all of the new crop sales at 934,000 MT.

Corn sales disapppointed at net cancellations of 49,800 MT of old crop and sales of only 206,400 MT for new crop against expectations of a combined 500-700 TMT.

The numbers also showed no sign of a let up in physical shipments of soybeans out of the US, with 1,094,900 MT going out of the door, mostly to China (666,600 MT). That brings the total volume shipped so far in 2012/13 to just over 31 MMT. Outsanding sales are down to 3.9 MMT, bringing total commitments to 34.9 MMT, or almost 95.4% of the USDA target for the entire season with over 5 months of it still left to run. Corn commitments are only 63.4% by comparison.

Wheat commitments are 81.7% of the USDA target for a season that ends in May. Old crop sales now need to average 403 TMT/week to hit that target.