Grain > Commentary > 12-7-2021

12/7/2021

Dec 07, 2021

12/7/2021
A back-and-forth day of trade with a finish seeing corn and wheat higher and soybeans lower.  Soybeans jumped higher early after the 8:30 open with the USDA announcing 123,000 tonnes of soybeans to unknown for the 2021/22 marketing year but were trading in the red within the first 30 minutes with the development of some helpful rain showers making their way across South America.  The EPA is expected to announce lowered ethanol blending mandates this afternoon and reject a large number of small refinery exemption requests.  The mandates are expected to be 12.6 billion gallons for 2020, 13.8 billion for 2021, and 15 billion for 2022 but there are a wide-range of estimates. Seems odd an administration that pushed renewable energy as part of its platform would be supportive of a lowered ethanol blending mandate.  This didn't seem to upset trade today with corn able to rally off its lows and finish modestly higher.  Estimates for Thursday's report show a small cut in corn carry out and a small increase in soybean carry out.  The USDA leaving the balance sheet unchanged into the new year would likely see the managed money leave grains 2022.  

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