Good morning.
Corn and soybean futures are quiet to start Wednesday’s trade, with both trading slightly lower as of this writing. Soybean futures challenged yesterday’s lows overnight but have so far held, while corn futures have made basically the same low for now 3 sessions in a row going back to last week. News has been on the light side so far this week, with the overarching theme of big South American crops moving back to the forefront following last week’s election. As the old saying goes, a bull needs fed daily, and without any bullish fundamental input, markets are likely to drift lower into the end of the year. Corn futures this morning are trading 1-2 cents lower, soybean futures are 3-4 cents lower, and the Chicago wheat market is 4-5 cents lower. Products are lower, soybean meal is down around $2/ton, and soybean oil is down 40-45 points. Outside markets are mixed, crude oil futures are up 30-40 cents/bbl, the Dow Jones index is down 90 points, and the US$ index is down 10 points. The S&P500 is down 10 points, and the NASDAQ is down 50 points.
Yesterday afternoon’s crop progress update, delayed a day for the Monday holiday, showed corn and soybean harvest have nearly wrapped up for the year; corn harvest was seen at 95% compared to the five-year average of 84%, and soybean harvest was seen at 96% compared to the five-year average of 91%. This was the last harvest update of the season for corn and soybeans.
Winter wheat planting advanced to 91%, which remains just slightly behind the five-year average of 93%; conditions improved 3% in the g/ex category to 44%, while emergence advanced another 10% to 76%. This is still slightly behind average. At the state level, just 6 of 18 states saw declining conditions, with the biggest being South Dakota (-7%).
States with the biggest improvements in condition ratings were Missouri (+13%), Texas (+9%), Arkansas (+9%), and Michigan (+8%). Last year’s g/ex rating at this time for the nation was 47%.
The trade sees Conab tomorrow morning raising their estimate of Brazil 2024/25 soybean production by 2.29 mmt’s to 168.3 mmt’s according to a survey of eight analysts done by Bloomberg. Corn production estimates are seen increasing by 3.8 mmt’s to 123.5 mmt’s. Planted area changes are expected to be minimal.
With roughly six weeks to go in the 2024 calendar year, exporters in Brazil expect meal exports in the current calendar year to reach a new record; the previous record of 22.35 mmt’s was set in 2023, while 2024’s total is seen at more than 21 mmt’s already through November. This means December would need to see just 1.25 mmt’s of exports, which is a figure that’s been achieved every month so far this year.
Private ag consultant SovEcon raised their estimate of Ukraine’s corn crop by 1.6 mmt’s to 25.1 mmt’s; same group increased their export estimate by a similar 1.3 mmt’s to 20.3 mmt’s.
Indonesia’s government on Wednesday reaffirmed to lawmakers its plans to implement a B40 mandatory biodiesel mix starting in January. The source also confirmed the expectation for a B50 mandate by 2026. Malaysian palm oil futures are up more than 30% this year, and sources think the added blend mandates could further push prices another 10-15%.
Shipping data out of Russia shows seaborne grain exports out of the country reached 6.3 mmt’s in October, which is up nearly 11% from the same month last year. Cumulative seaborne exports have reached 22.8 mmt’s, which is up just over 2% from last year.
Economists see this morning’s inflation data showing annual inflation rising to 2.6% in October, up from last month’s 2.4% reading; core inflation though is seen holding steady at 3.3%, but this is still above the 3.2% reading seen in July and August.
President-elect Trump on Tuesday appointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new government department titled DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency); the two men will be tasked with “dismantling government bureaucracy, slashing excess regulations, cutting wasteful expenditures, and restructuring Federal agencies,” among other things.
Other Trump appointments on Tuesday included Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be Defense Secretary, and John Ratcliffe, former national intelligence director during Trump’s first term, to be head of the CIA.
Light showers dotted the central/northern Plains on Tuesday, while areas around New Orleans and east up the Gulf coast also picked up rains. Otherwise, the rest of the country was mostly dry.
Rains look to begin in the lower Mississippi River Valley through the day on Wednesday and make their way north and east through the day tomorrow and into Friday morning. The weekend then looks to be dry, before more rains move up from further to the southwest and cross more through the central Plains and up into the upper Midwest.
This second system will be temperature dependent as it makes it way further north in terms of whether the precipitation is rain or snow. Yesterday afternoon’s runs had the snowfall beginning further south in MO/IA, while this morning’s runs have shifted the expected snowfall significantly further north into MN/Canada. This will have the attention of most of the western Midwest through the weekend and into next week and is likely to continue shifting.
Week-two outlooks for the US this morning have taken a drier shift pretty much across the board, as even the EU AI model came on board with this change. The EU/GFS ensembles, and also the CPC model, all see a broad area of dryness now across the south and the southeast for the November 21st to 27th time period.
Satellite data shows rains moved further south in Brazil on Tuesday vs Monday, while only the very far northern edge of Argentina saw any kind of precipitation. Totals in Brazil ranged from 0.1″ to 1″ generally, with a few locally heavier amounts.
Forecasts overnight were mostly unchanged; the week-one period shows chances at rainfall for northern Argentina beginning Sunday/Monday, while the week-two outlook shows more scattered showers, but in a location further to the south. No updates to the Brazil forecast this morning.
Have a great day.
Grain Comments: 11-13-2024
Good morning.
Corn and soybean futures are quiet to start Wednesday’s trade, with both trading slightly lower as of this writing. Soybean futures challenged yesterday’s lows overnight but have so far held, while corn futures have made basically the same low for now 3 sessions in a row going back to last week. News has been on the light side so far this week, with the overarching theme of big South American crops moving back to the forefront following last week’s election. As the old saying goes, a bull needs fed daily, and without any bullish fundamental input, markets are likely to drift lower into the end of the year. Corn futures this morning are trading 1-2 cents lower, soybean futures are 3-4 cents lower, and the Chicago wheat market is 4-5 cents lower. Products are lower, soybean meal is down around $2/ton, and soybean oil is down 40-45 points. Outside markets are mixed, crude oil futures are up 30-40 cents/bbl, the Dow Jones index is down 90 points, and the US$ index is down 10 points. The S&P500 is down 10 points, and the NASDAQ is down 50 points.
Yesterday afternoon’s crop progress update, delayed a day for the Monday holiday, showed corn and soybean harvest have nearly wrapped up for the year; corn harvest was seen at 95% compared to the five-year average of 84%, and soybean harvest was seen at 96% compared to the five-year average of 91%. This was the last harvest update of the season for corn and soybeans.
Winter wheat planting advanced to 91%, which remains just slightly behind the five-year average of 93%; conditions improved 3% in the g/ex category to 44%, while emergence advanced another 10% to 76%. This is still slightly behind average. At the state level, just 6 of 18 states saw declining conditions, with the biggest being South Dakota (-7%).
States with the biggest improvements in condition ratings were Missouri (+13%), Texas (+9%), Arkansas (+9%), and Michigan (+8%). Last year’s g/ex rating at this time for the nation was 47%.
The trade sees Conab tomorrow morning raising their estimate of Brazil 2024/25 soybean production by 2.29 mmt’s to 168.3 mmt’s according to a survey of eight analysts done by Bloomberg. Corn production estimates are seen increasing by 3.8 mmt’s to 123.5 mmt’s. Planted area changes are expected to be minimal.
With roughly six weeks to go in the 2024 calendar year, exporters in Brazil expect meal exports in the current calendar year to reach a new record; the previous record of 22.35 mmt’s was set in 2023, while 2024’s total is seen at more than 21 mmt’s already through November. This means December would need to see just 1.25 mmt’s of exports, which is a figure that’s been achieved every month so far this year.
Private ag consultant SovEcon raised their estimate of Ukraine’s corn crop by 1.6 mmt’s to 25.1 mmt’s; same group increased their export estimate by a similar 1.3 mmt’s to 20.3 mmt’s.
Indonesia’s government on Wednesday reaffirmed to lawmakers its plans to implement a B40 mandatory biodiesel mix starting in January. The source also confirmed the expectation for a B50 mandate by 2026. Malaysian palm oil futures are up more than 30% this year, and sources think the added blend mandates could further push prices another 10-15%.
Shipping data out of Russia shows seaborne grain exports out of the country reached 6.3 mmt’s in October, which is up nearly 11% from the same month last year. Cumulative seaborne exports have reached 22.8 mmt’s, which is up just over 2% from last year.
Economists see this morning’s inflation data showing annual inflation rising to 2.6% in October, up from last month’s 2.4% reading; core inflation though is seen holding steady at 3.3%, but this is still above the 3.2% reading seen in July and August.
President-elect Trump on Tuesday appointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new government department titled DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency); the two men will be tasked with “dismantling government bureaucracy, slashing excess regulations, cutting wasteful expenditures, and restructuring Federal agencies,” among other things.
Other Trump appointments on Tuesday included Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be Defense Secretary, and John Ratcliffe, former national intelligence director during Trump’s first term, to be head of the CIA.
Light showers dotted the central/northern Plains on Tuesday, while areas around New Orleans and east up the Gulf coast also picked up rains. Otherwise, the rest of the country was mostly dry.
Rains look to begin in the lower Mississippi River Valley through the day on Wednesday and make their way north and east through the day tomorrow and into Friday morning. The weekend then looks to be dry, before more rains move up from further to the southwest and cross more through the central Plains and up into the upper Midwest.
This second system will be temperature dependent as it makes it way further north in terms of whether the precipitation is rain or snow. Yesterday afternoon’s runs had the snowfall beginning further south in MO/IA, while this morning’s runs have shifted the expected snowfall significantly further north into MN/Canada. This will have the attention of most of the western Midwest through the weekend and into next week and is likely to continue shifting.
Week-two outlooks for the US this morning have taken a drier shift pretty much across the board, as even the EU AI model came on board with this change. The EU/GFS ensembles, and also the CPC model, all see a broad area of dryness now across the south and the southeast for the November 21st to 27th time period.
Satellite data shows rains moved further south in Brazil on Tuesday vs Monday, while only the very far northern edge of Argentina saw any kind of precipitation. Totals in Brazil ranged from 0.1″ to 1″ generally, with a few locally heavier amounts.
Forecasts overnight were mostly unchanged; the week-one period shows chances at rainfall for northern Argentina beginning Sunday/Monday, while the week-two outlook shows more scattered showers, but in a location further to the south. No updates to the Brazil forecast this morning.
Have a great day.
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