In the overnight session the grains traded higher with corn up 3 cents, soybeans up 8 cents and wheat up 4 cents. The U.S. dollar is trading higher by .30 percent and crude oil is down 25 cents this morning. Grains traded sharply lower on the August Supply and Demand report which was released out yesterday. A surprise yield increase for both corn and soybeans shocked the market resulting in significantly larger ending stocks than originally expected out of this report. Corn yield was adjusted 2 bushels per acre higher to 168.8 BPA bringing new crop corn ending stocks to 1.713 billion bushels which was 289 million bushels over expectations. Soybean yield was revised .9 bushels higher to 46.9 BPA in this report pushing ending stocks 169 million bushels above analyst expectations to 470 million bushels.
Export sales showed some slight improvement this week for corn and soybeans but sales remained lackluster. Wheat booked 421,600 metric tons this week which was down 50 percent from the previous week and was on the low end of analyst expectations. Corn sales were positive but only recorded 29,200 metric tons of old crop sales which was well below the expectations which ranged from 50,000-250,000 metric tons. New crop corn sales met expectations with 501,900 metric tons sold last week. Old crop soybean sales were up noticeably from the net cancellations in the previous week. With 96,300 metric tons sold, this week’s sales were able to meet expectations. New crop soybean sales were also strong with 660,500 metric tons reported this week.
Ethanol production increased 4,000 barrels per day this week to 965,000 BPD snapping a four week decline in production. Ethanol production this week is recorded 86,000 barrels per day more than the four year average and 34,000 barrels per day ahead of production in the same week last year. Cumulative ethanol production this year is 4.6 percent ahead of the pace last marketing season. Ethanol stocks declined this week by 710,000 barrels to 18.53 million barrels.
