In the overnight session the grains are mostly unchanged with corn down 2 3/4 cents, soybeans unchanged and wheat in Chicago up 3/4 of a cent. The U.S. dollar is up a fraction of a percent this morning and crude oil is trading 14 cents higher.
Export sales provided another strong week for corn and soybeans and yet again disappointed for wheat. Corn booked 841,000 metric tons which was above analyst expectations which ranged between 300,000-600,000. Soybeans reported strong export sales for the second week in a row by booking 338,000 metric tons which was on the high side of expectations which ranged from 0-350,000 metric tons. Soybean have booked a cumulative 49.4 million metric tons of sales which is well ahead of the roughly 44.6 million metric tons last year and the 45.8 million metric tons expected to meet current USDA expectations.
Wheat sales disappointed expectations this morning with cancellations of 148,000 metric tons. Analysts were expecting sales that ranged from -100,000 to 100,000 metric tons. New crop sales booked 446,800 metric tons which was up from the previous week but below the 4 week average.
Ethanol production on Wednesday fell 35,000 barrels per day to 887,000 barrels per day. The decline was the smallest weekly production data since the second week in November and was partly due to routine facility maintenance. Ethanol stocks declined 35,000 barrels to 20.76 million barrels this week. Despite the decline in production this week, overall ethanol production is still running 5 percent over last year.
