Grain > Commentary > 2-16-2021

2/16/2021

Feb 16, 2021

2/16/2021
Overnight markets gapped higher and traded up double digits rather quickly.  The cold weather was likely the biggest factor as the winter wheat crop likely had some damage.  The problem with that is we won't know the extent of that damage for quite some time yet.  The cold weather has also slowed farmer movement, which is a big deal in the eastern river market.  River conditions are poor due to ice.  Railroad performance is poor due to power issues in the cold.  None of which is good for an export market that is hungry for corn.  Corn is already inverted and this won't help matters any.  Other news today was rather quiet.  It felt like we got another round of corn business done off the PNW last Friday, but nothing got reported this morning.  Export inspections were out this morning, corn and wheat were good, beans were not.  The shift from beans to corn in the export market continues and that only intensifies as we go into March.  Soybean crush was 184.65 million bushels vs. 183.1 million estimate.  That was a record for the month and the 3rd biggest for any month.
 

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8/12/2025
Aug 12, 2025
The USDA report today didn't treat the corn market very well.  Both corn acres and yield were higher the result has corn carryout over 2.1 billion bushels.  Corn yield was pegged at 188.8 bpa vs an estimate of 184.29 bpa.  How high is 188.8?  Well…the previous record was 179.3.  Planted corn acres were put at 97.3 million.  Total corn production is estimated at 16.742 billion bushels, which is 763 million more than the report estimates.
5/12/2025
May 12, 2025
News broke Sunday that the USA and China have agreed to ease tensions and lower tariffs.  The US is lowering tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30%.  China is lowering their import tariffs from 125% to 10%.  Talks will resume in the coming weeks.  This news had stocks, grains and oil higher overnight. Then of course we had a USDA grain report come out at 11:00 this morning.  That was also a bit friendly.
3/31/2025
Mar 31, 2025
USDA reported corn planting acres at 95.326 million acres of corn, which would be up a little more than 5% from 2024's final number and the second highest March figure of the last ten years behind only 2020's estimate of 96.99 mil acres.  US corn stocks as of March 1st were seen at 81.51 billion bushels, which was exactly what the trade had expected and was down just over 2% from March 1 of 2024.  USDA said farmers intended to plant 83.495 million acres of soybeans, which would be down about 4% from last year and was just a hair smaller than what the trade was looking for.  March 1 soybean stocks were pegged at 1.91 billion bu's, which again was nearly exactly as the trade had expected, and was up 3.5% compared to March 1, 2024.