CNS Canada — Thursday’s world agricultural supply and demand estimates (WASDE) report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture caused a stir in corn and soybean markets on the Chicago Board of Trade.
“The Brazil and Argentine numbers (were) really not too terribly exciting. And the world numbers (were) basically kind of going exactly the opposite direction as the U.S. numbers,” said Jack Scoville, a senior market analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago.
Corn rallied after the report showed the U.S. was exporting 175 million more bushels of corn compared to last month, causing a decrease of 225 million bushels in U.S. corn stocks to 2.127 billion bushels.
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The May CBOT corn contract ended Thursday rising seven cents to settle at $3.9325 per bushel (all figures US$).
USDA’s data for soybeans saw exports decrease by 35 million bushels to 2.065 billion bushels, while stocks rose by 25 million bushels to 555 million bushels. The May CBOT soybean contract ended Thursday one cent higher, settling at $10.64 per bushel.
“The corn ending stocks for the world actually went up a little bit and beans and wheat went down a little bit. But we’re really kind of paying more attention to the U.S. ending stocks data here and that’s what we’re reacting to along with the great sales,” Scoville said.
The WASDE report pegged world stocks for corn at 203.09 million tonnes; world soybean stocks were at 98.14 million.
Based on strong U.S. exports, Scoville thinks the corn market will continue to rally. However, he thinks the soybean market won’t see an increase, as it has already rallied.
Soybeans, he said, are “still susceptible to a pullback but the corn, I think, is going higher.”
— Ashley Robinson writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.
