2/18/2021

Both corn and beans were quietly lower through both sessions with another day that lacked any real trading news.  The USDA 2021 Outlook Forum was held this morning with the chief economist for the USDA providing our first estimates for the coming crop year.  It is estimated 92 million acres of corn and 90 million acres of beans will be planted in 2021.  Using some rough math, this would leave our corn carryout basically unchanged at 1.525 and soybean carryout at .214.  With new crop corn futures at 460 and above, it’s hard for me to believe we will only add 1.2 million acres of corn production in 2021.  Weekly ethanol production was 911k barrels/day.  This is down 26k bpd from the week prior and the 3rd lowest week of the marketing year.  This would be the perfect time to consider additional of new crop sales.  Both new crop corn and beans are still within shouting distance of their contract highs and any hint at large plantings will turn this into a weather market, only.  Beans were down on rain in Brazil overnight but with Chinese New Year holiday complete, trade will begin to look for additional sales to China.  Only 65 million bushels of new sales are needed to meet the USDA forecast for soybean exports.