Alert: Grain Markets close at noon central time on July 3, 2014.
U.S. grain markets are trying to find bottom today, two days after the June USDA report sent markets sharply lower. Coming into the morning trade break, we have corn down 2 cents, soybeans off a penny, and Chicago wheat down a cent. Old-crop soybeans are again taking ground on the new crop, with August up 4 cents.
Corn traders will be watching today’s ethanol crush report, out at 9:30 central time. Helped out by surging crude oil prices, ethanol production reached record levels in mid-June and has been a supportive story for the old crop corn market. Overnight tenders were issued from both the South Koreans and the Taiwanese for U.S. origin corn. Considering a corn crop now rated 75% good to excellent, any strength moving toward pollination will need to be helped out by export sales and domestic usage numbers.
Yesterday Egypt's state grain buyer bought 240,000 tons of Romanian and Russian wheat on an international tender, providing little support for U.S wheat. U.S wheat was offered on the high side of the price range at $259/metric ton while Romanian and Russian wheat was offered nearly $7 cheaper. Of the reported offers, the French wheat was the most expensive, at $262.37/metric ton.
August soybeans found some technical support after it touched briefly on its 200-day moving average at 1304. August, which is now the front month for soybeans sold off 48 ¼ cents on Monday following the report as stocks showed 27 million more bushels on hand June 1 than analysts were expecting.
