The grains traded lower in the overnight session with corn down 3 ¼ cents, soybeans down 2 cents and wheat in Chicago up ¼ of a penny. The U.S. Dollar is trading sharply higher to 97.395 after breaking above the previous resistance of 95.85 set on January 26th. The market will be focusing on the March USDA Supply and Demand reports which will be released at 11 AM CST on Tuesday March 10th.
Analysts are expecting wheat ending stocks to increase to 699 million bushels from 692 in the February report. Total wheat export sales are running at pace to meet current USDA expectations, but the rise in the dollar continues to hurt U.S. wheat competitiveness on the global market. Corn ending stocks are expected to decline slightly falling to 1.826 billion bushels from 1.827 billion in February, and Soybean ending stocks are expected to shrink down to 376 million bushels from 385 million bushels in February. Soybean sales have run well ahead of last year’s pace, already booking 97.7 percent of forecast export sales.
The Buenos Aires Grains exchange warned yesterday that the floods in the northern Pampas region could cause them to reduce their soybean production estimate which currently sits at 57 million metric tons. In the February WASDE supply and demand estimates, the USDA’s pegged Argentina soybean production at 56 million metric tons. Rains are expected in the 6-10 day forecast with most precipitation focused over the central and northwestern parts of Argentina.
