Weekly Export Sales
- Corn export sales for the week ended 6/11/20 totaled 14.1 million bushels, which was less than expected.
- Old-crop soybean sales at 19.8 million bushels were at bottom of market expectations, but new-crop sales at 50.8 million exceeded expectations.
- Wheat sales were 18.5 million bushels for the week, which was up from 9.9 million last week and slightly above expected levels.
- Sales of 97,600 bales of upland cotton for 2019/20 were down 76 percent from the previous week, but 2020/21 sales increased to 148,400 bales.
FBN’s Take On What It Means: Sales for 2019/20 tended toward disappointing, but still were on pace to meet export forecasts for the marketing year. New-crop sales were generally better, with soybeans standing out.
US Trade Representative Expects Phase 1 Goals Will Be Met
- The Chinese government reportedly asked state-owned agricultural buyers to make all efforts to meet obligations under the trade deal.
- In meetings in Hawaii this week, China recommitted to step up buying of everything from soybeans to corn and ethanol.
- China purchased only $4.65 billion in the first four months of the year, which is only 13% of the goal and almost 40% below the same period in 2017.
- A potential resurgence of the coronavirus and continued political tensions remain as risks for further purchases.
FBN’s Take On What It Means: It is hard to say at what level China’s purchases would be without the slow down due to the coronavirus epidemic. Affirming compliance with the trade deal is important, but actions always speak louder than words. Earlier this month, China’s government reportedly asked state-owned buyers to stop some purchases, but importers increased soybean buying as US prices became more competitive. Now that US prices are the cheapest to all destinations, expect China to expand soybean purchases at least until Brazil’s harvest next year.
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