In the overnight session the grains traded lower after the crop progress report showed soybeans and corn conditions slightly above market expectations. Corn condition was reported at 61% good-to-excellent down one percent from last week. Soybeans condition was 59 percent good-to-excellent up two percent from the previous week. Spring wheat conditions deteriorated last week falling to 31 percent good-to-excellent, down 2 percent from last week.
At 2 PM today the USDA will release its Grain Crushings report which gives monthly totals for agricultural products consumed in dry and wet mill production. According to a Reuters poll of six analysts the average trade estimate for soybeans processed in June is for 146.9 million bushels with estimates ranging from 146 million bushels to 148 million bushels. If realized this would be a 7 percent decline from May. The reuters poll also estimated June soyoil stocks to be 2.24 billion pounds.
On July 17th, the NOPA crush report estimated that its members, who account for 95% of US soybean crush, processed 138.074 million bushels of soybeans in June, down from 149.246 million in May. The NOPA crush report also showed that soyoil stocks declined to 1.703 billion pounds, down from 1.749 billion in May.
Weather forecasts in the 1-5 day time frame continues to look cooler which should be supportive of a crop that often times can deal with heat stress during this time of the year. Precipitation will benefit many growing regions this week with the exception of Iowa, the western Dakotas and Montana. Weather in China’s corn growing regions also looks favorable over the next 10 days with temperatures ranging from 1-3 degrees above normal with abundant precipitation in the forecast.
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