Corn and wheat drifted lower to start the week while soybeans were posting modest gains going into the morning break. In outside markets, crude oil shot higher by $1.50 a barrel while equities and the US Dollar were slightly lower.
On Friday, Informa economics released new US acreage projections, pegging soybean plantings at 89.7 million acres vs USDA at 89.5, while corn acres were expected to be 89.7 as compared to 90.0 by USDA.
Today will bring the release of NOPA crush estimates for April. Traders expect a 145.7 MB crush estimate which would be off from the same month last year at 147.6 MB. The last two months have seen actual crush estimates miss analyst estimates to the downside by 4 MB.
Rains over the weekend were mostly confined to the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic region with the rest of the grain belt seeing dry weather to aid in planting progress. However, this week should see rain hitting the Northern Plains and Western Cornbelt with two different systems expected to bring around an inch of rain during each event. Temperatures are expected to be warmer than normal, helping to aid drying between events.
Crude oil futures jumped to a two-week high on Monday after Saudi Arabian and Russian energy ministers in a joint statement said they back a nine-month extension to the current production cuts led by the OPEC members. That would keep current output caps in place through the first quarter of 2018 if agreed to by all parties at the coming May 25 OPEC meeting.
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