2/1/2021

Old crop corn set new contract highs during two-sided overnight trade that was followed up by a mostly lower day session.  Corn also found some buying interest at the end of the day to finish 2 higher.  We had more export sale announcements today that included corn sales of 125,000 tonnes to Mexico and 110,000 tonnes to Japan. We also had 133,000 tonnes of bean meal sold to the Philippines.  With last week's impressive export sale announcements, we would expect to see some quick improvement in basis for our PNW market but there have been no changes, yet.  It is possible that exporters may have already been long in a sizeable portion of that corn.  Time will tell if that proves correct.  The weekly export inspections report came in at 1.105 million tonnes of corn and 1.792 million tonnes of beans.  This was down significantly from last week but both were in the mid-upper end of trade estimates.  The trucker strike in Brazil that was set to start today did materialize and it is expected to last more than 2 weeks.  As of right now, this should not affect the bean market with Brazil seeing its slowest harvest in 10 years due to recent heavy rains.  If the strike continues into full harvest, it could favor the US bean market.  Some early planting intention estimates are out showing an increase from 2020 into 2021 of 3 million acres of corn and 8 million acres of soybeans.