The Pro Farmer crop tour announced their official crop estimates on Friday after walking fields across Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. Both corn and soybean estimates came in below the latest USDA production forecasts which triggered some buying in the early night session Sunday evening. However, the gains evaporated by morning leaving December Corn down ¾ of a cent, November Soybeans up a 2 ¾ and December Chicago Wheat down 2 ¾ cents this AM.
The Pro Farmer U.S corn production estimate was 13.953 billion bushels with an average yield of 167.1 bpa. This is below the August USDA estimate of 169.5 bpa and 14.153 billion bushels of total corn production. The tour estimated soybean production at 4.331 billion bushels with an average yield of 48.5 bpa. The August WASDE estimate pegged soybean production at 4.381 billion bushels and 49.4 bpa.
According to the latest commitment of traders report, non-commercial traders, a category that includes large speculators increased their net short for corn, soybeans and SRW wheat. The net short position for corn increased by -47,041 to -81,729. The net short position for soybeans grew by -9,138 to -56,122 and the SRW wheat net short position increased -21,488 to -96,112.
A Reuters poll of nine analysts indicate that brazilian soy farmers may increase their planted area for the 2017-18 crop. The average analyst guess shows brazilian acreage increasing by 2 percent from last year to 85.7 million acres with a total production of 110.6 million metric tons. Analysts are expecting an increase to be mainly in the Parana state.
The risk of trading futures, hedging, and speculating can be substantial. Grain Hedge is a Branch of Foremost Trading LLC (NFA ID: 0307930)
