Grain > Commentary > 2-17-2021

2/17/2021

Feb 17, 2021

2/17/2021
Corn and beans were both slightly higher for most of the overnight but faded going into the morning break.  Overall, today, there was limited fresh news to spark any general buying interest.  Corn was able to trade 1-2 higher for most of the day on support from strong energy and crude oil markets.  Weather has also offered some support to the corn market this week.  Forecasts show Argentina returning to a dry pattern over the next week and the widespread cold in the US has limited grain movement over the past 10 days.  Soybean trade was weaker today with conditions in Brazil mostly favorable.  As a whole, Brazil soybean harvest is still slower than normal (8% harvested vs 20% avg) but the combines in Brazil are rolling and their harvest continues to grow.  The wheat sector gave back most of yesterday's big gains with most traders skeptical to the extent of the winter wheat crop damage in the US.  Overall, the US economy is showing signs of improvement which will provide some underlying support to the commodities.  The US drought monitor has not changed much over the past couple months and will continue to play a bigger role in the markets as we move closer to planting.
 

Read More News

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.
3/11/2025
Mar 11, 2025
The monthly USDA WASDE report was today and it was about as boring as it can get.  The USDA took the month off leaving corn and beans carryouts unchanged.  Corn remains at 1.540 billion bushels and beans at 380 million bushels.  World ending stocks were slightly lowered on both corn and beans.  World corn was pegged at 288.94 million tonnes vs 290.3 million tonnes previously.  World beans were pegged at 121.4 million tonnes vs 124.3 million tonnes previously.  All of the South American crop production estimates were also left unchanged.