Chicago Beans Rise On Strong Demand, But Corn And Wheat End Lower
02/12/15 -- Soycomplex: Beans, meal and oil all closed with daily gains, with oil faring the best of the three as it continues to bask in the notion that biodiesel will make up much of the newly increased RFS mandate. The USDA reported a private sale of 124,000 MT of US soybeans to unknown destinations for the 2015/16 marketing year. Strong demand for beans continues, with the trade expecting weekly export sales tomorrow of around 800,000 MT to 1.2 MMT to be reported by the USDA. Meal sales are expected in the range of 150,000 to 300,000 MT, and soyoil guesses are 10,000 to 25,000 MT. Monday and Tuesday are public holidays in Argentina and new president Macri takes office on Thursday. The trade is currently of the opinion that he will only gradually remove the 30% tax on soybean exports at the rate of around 5% per year. Jan 16 Soybeans settled at $8.92 1/4, up 3 cents; Mar 16 Soybeans settled at $8.95, up 3 1/2 cents; Dec 15 Soybean Meal settled at $286.30, up $0.60; Dec 15 Soybean Oil settled at 30.27, up 49 points.
Corn: The corn market closed around 3 cents or so lower. New Argentine president Macri is expected to quash the export tax on corn more or less immediately, leading to a sudden increase in cheap offers from the South American country. Indeed, Reuters today carried a story that the Argentine corn area might increase by 10% or more following his recent run-off victory, with final plantings increasing from the recently forecast 2.6 million ha to around 2.9-3.0 million, as growers there look to "cash in" on the newly liberated export regime. Weekly US ethanol production came in at 956,000 barrels per day, down from the record 1.008 million barrels/day of the previous week. Thanksgiving may account for some of that decline. Trade estimates for tomorrow's Weekly Export Sales report range from 500,000 MT to 1.1 MMT. Ukraine said that it had exported 3.3 MMT of grains in November of which more than 50% (1.76 MMT) was corn. Russia said that their corn harvest was now 90.7% done at 12.8 MMT versus 11.2 MMT this time a year ago. Dec 15 Corn settled at $3.64, down 3 cents; Mar 16 Corn settled at $3.70 1/4, down 3 1/2 cents.
Wheat: The wheat market closed lower across the three exchanges, with Minneapolis leading the way down for once. Recent gains there may have been a bit overdone. Dec 2015 CBOT wheat posted another new lifetime contract low this morning. Export interest in US wheat remains fairly minimal. Trade estimates for tomorrow's weekly export sales report are a modest 250,000 to 500,000 MT, in line with last week's 303,700 MT. Japan are in the market for their regular weekly tender of 125,600 MT of US/Canadian food wheat with the results due tomorrow, but this is no more than routine business. Conflicting reports remain concerning the Russian/Turkish situation. Just because Russia "says" that there is no wheat export ban to Turkey doesn't mean that there isn't one really. Certainly traders on both sides appear very reluctant to enter into any new business with each other for the time being, for fear of government intervention in the markets. Russian winter plantings are 95.4% complete at 16.3 million ha. Ukraine exported 1.27 MMT of wheat in November. Dec 15 CBOT Wheat settled at $4.52 1/4, down 4 1/4 cents; Dec 15 KCBT Wheat settled at $4.48 1/4, down 3 1/4 cents; Dec 15 MGEX Wheat settled at $5.19 3/4, down 6 1/2 cents.
