In the overnight session the grains traded higher with corn up 2 3/4 cents, soybeans up 14 1/4 cents and wheat up 6 1/4 cents. The U.S dollar is up a fraction of a percent and crude oil is up $1.50. Traders will be positioning themselves for the July WASDE report which will be released out on Friday, July 10th.
Informa cut its soybean production forecast by 41 million bushels to 3.77 billion bushels in its latest forecast citing lost acreage in Missouri and crop damage from the recent heavy rains.
Growing conditions have been ideal for the second crop in South America. Brazil’s government crop agency Conab raised its corn production forecast to 81.81 million metric tons, up from 80.21 million metric tons last month. Conab is also raising its soybean and wheat forecast to 96.22 million metric tons and 7.01 million metric tons respectively.
In this morning’s export sales report corn, soybeans and wheat all met analyst expectations for old crop sales. Wheat booked 345,900 metric tons which was a 5 percent decline from last week, but fell within expectations which ranged between 300-500 metric tons. Old crop corn sales were reported at 535,200 metric tons, down 10 percent from the previous week. Soybeans booked positive export sales of 41,000 metric tons, which was a big improvement from the cancellations reported last week. New crop sales were mixed, with corn reporting below expectations at 149,000 metric tons and soybeans meeting expectations at 201,000 metric tons.
Ethanol production jumped 19,000 barrels per day this week to a total of 987,000 barrels per day. This is a significant improvement over last week and nearly 60,000 barrels per day higher than last year’s pace. Ethanol stocks increased 309,000 barrels this week to a total of 19,840,000 barrels.
The Ukrainian Ag Minister announced today that grain output may be adjusted lower from their previous forecast of 60 million metric tons of grain this year. Temperatures above the high 80’s Fahrenheit have stressed late developing crops and heavy precipitation in the southern and central regions have caused serious quality issues in the wheat.
