Chicago Grains Slip Lower For Second Day
07/04/15 -- Soycomplex: Beans drifted lower in quiet trade. Pretty much a carbon copy of yesterday in fact. The USDA announced 165,000 MT of US beans sold to China for 2015/16 shipment. Routine business there. Attention is now switching to Thursday's WASDE report from the USDA. That is expected to tighten US ending stocks a little, with a net reduction of 15 million bushels being the average trade guess. They were pegged at 385 million a month ago. The range of guesses is 339 million to 391 million. World soybean stocks are estimated to be unchanged. There may be some tweaks to production in South America, where they were at 94.5 MMT for Brazil and 56 MMT for Argentina last month. A rise for Argentina is perhaps the most likely change there. In other news, Safras e Mercado said that the Brazilian bean harvest is 75% complete versus 80% a year ago. China is estimated importing 5.4 MMT of soybeans this month, rising to 6.6 MMT in May, 7.0 MMT in June and 7.8 MMT in July. There's some talk of Ukraine possibly introducing an export duty on soybeans. A wetter forecast for the US Midwest is seen leaning bearish for beans, as it is beneficial in terms of recharging reduced soil moisture profiles and it could delay corn planting. May 15 Soybeans closed at $9.71, down 7 1/2 cents; Jul 15 Soybeans closed at $9.76 1/4, down 7 1/4 cents; May 15 Soybean Meal closed at $319.70, down $3.30; May 15 Soybean Oil closed at 31.03, down 23 points.
Corn: The corn market edged a little lower, in what also looked like a repeat performance of yesterday's action. Although the USDA didn't report national corn planting progress last night, some of the individual southern states did, and almost all are still well behind normal. Louisiana was 67% planted versus 93% normally, Arkansas was 27 % planted versus 43%, Mississippi was 34% completed versus 57% and Texas was 37% planted versus 43%. The forecast for both the Delta and the Midwest is now wet for the week ahead, which could certainly encourage some switch from intended corn acres into beans. The trade is expecting US ending stocks to rise around 80 million bushels from the 1.777 billion bushels forecast a month ago in Thursday's report. Global carryout is expected to be raised around 1.5 MMT too. Commodity Weather Group are said to be tentatively forecasting a wet bias for the US Corn Belt in June/July, turning drier in August. Relatively benign temperatures are being pencilled in for the whole summer however, which would keep crop stress to a minimum. Russia said that they'd exported 1.963 MMT of corn so far this season, a 37% reduction on last year at this time. Weekly ethanol production numbers are out tomorrow. Last week's output was 952,000 barrels/day. Firmer crude oil markets these past few days are supporting ethanol prices. May 15 Corn closed at $3.83, down 2 cents; Jul 15 Corn closed at $3.91, down 2 cents.
Wheat: The wheat market closed lower, pressured by the firmer US dollar which will do nothing to aid ailing US exports. Solely based on last night's winter wheat crop ratings from the USDA, this year's crop doesn't look great at 44% good to excellent, but it's better than expected (40-42% G/E) and an improvement on last year (35% G/E). Current weather forecasts suggest a fair chance of rain for the Southern Plains this weekend. We've seen those forecast fail to live up to expectations before however. India estimated losses due to late season heavy rain and hail to their 2015 wheat crop at around 4 MMT. That would cut production this year to around 91-92 MMT. Russia said that they'd exported 26.335 MMT of grain so far this season, which is an increase of 26.3% year-on-year. Of that total 19.465 MMT is wheat, an increase of 26.6%. The USDA's FAS are predicting a Russian grain crop down 11% at 92 MMT this year versus the official (and seemingly optimistic) Ministry figure of 100 MMT. Wheat production will drop 10% to 53 MMT, they predict. They see wheat exports down from 19.5 MMT this season to 19.0 MMT in 2015/16. Ending stocks for 2015/16 will fall 3.1 MMT to 10.1 MMT, they estimate. All those figures exclude Crimea. The USDA attaché in Argentina estimated Argentina’s 2015/16 wheat crop at 12.0 MMT. May 15 CBOT Wheat closed at $5.26, down 1 3/4 cents; May 15 KCBT Wheat closed at $5.65 1/4, down 6 3/4 cents; May 15 MGEX Wheat closed at $5.83 1/2, down 6 1/4 cents.
