Grains continued to move higher overnight as soybeans led the complex following Tuesday’s surprise USDA report. Meanwhile, in outside markets the US dollar and equity futures were weaker while crude oil posted modest gains.
Yesterday bought a bullish surprise to the soybean market as USDA’s first glance at the new-crop 2016 supply and demand situation showed only 300 MB of carryout versus 400 MB that had been expected by most of the trade. This lower than expected inventory number was driven largely by a 140 MB increase in exports over this year, representing an 8% year-on-year increase.
For corn, carryout was lower than expected for new-crop 2016 at 2.1 billion bushels versus 2.3 expected. But it still represents a sizable increase over 1.8 billion bushels of stocks at the end of the current year. In wheat, the news was mostly bearish with bigger yields offsetting lower in acres for 2016. Overall USDA sees production only off about 50 MB from last year and ending stocks to increase to 1,029 MV versus this year’s carryout of 978 MB.
In other news, Farm office FranceAgriMer on Wednesday cut sharply its forecast for French soft wheat stocks at the end of the 2015/16 season as it revised downwards supply from last year's harvest and raised exports outside the European Union. The office put soft wheat stocks available to the market at 3.9 million tonnes against 5.45 million seen last month.
Crude oil was up slightly this morning but looking for direction from today’s EIA inventory data. Traders look for a 0.7 million barrel increase in stocks as compared to last week’s 2.7 million barrel build. API crude data on Tuesday was up 3.45 versus a trade estimate of only 0.3.
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