In the overnight session corn and soybeans traded a relatively wide range but went into the morning pause mostly unchanged. Wheat increased 3 1/4 cents in the overnight and the U.S. dollar index continued its slide for the third straight day. Crude oil is also trading lower this morning off nearly 1/4 of a percent.
Export sales were slow for wheat this week booking 47,900 metric tons of old crop sales, down 85 percent from last week’s sales. This week’s wheat sales were a marketing year low, missing analyst expectations which ranged between 100,000-300,000 metric tons. Old crop corn sales were reported at 588,200 metric tons which was down from 639,000 metric tons reported last week. Corn sales were on the high side of the analyst expectations which ranged from 400,000-600,000 metric tons. Soybeans beat analyst expectations by booking 312,000 metric tons this week. This week’s soybean sales were a large improvement from last week which saw 176,000 metric tons of cancellations. Notable sales were reported to Germany, Netherlands, unknown destinations and South Korea.
NOPA soybean crush came in well over analyst expectations with 162.822 million bushels of soybeans crushed in the month of March. Analyst expectations ranged from 150.5 to 159.5 million bushels with the average analyst guess expecting 155.261 MBU. The latest NOPA report marks the largest March soybean crush on record. Soyoil stocks were reported at 1.420 billion pounds well over analysts’ expectations of 1.383 billion pounds, but below last year’s levels of 2.023 billion pounds.
Ethanol production declined for the second week in a row bringing weekly ethanol production to 924,000 barrels per day. This week’s 12,000 barrel per day decline in ethanol production marks the first time since October that weekly 2014-15 production has fallen below 2013-14 levels. Despite falling below last year’s weekly production level, cumulative ethanol production this year has increased 5.4 percent compared to a USDA expected increase of 1.3 percent. This year’s ethanol stocks increased 162,000 barrels to 20.65 million barrels this week.
