3/11/2021

Corn and beans both choppy overnight and firmed higher in the day session as there were simply more buyers than sellers on another day that offered little news to trade.  Weekly export sales were mixed.  Soybeans and wheat were both strong, with net sales of 351k tonnes of soybeans and 330k tonnes of wheat.  Corn sales were weak at 396k tonnes, below trade estimates.  South American crop estimates continue to be mixture of bullish in Argentina and bearish in Brazil.  CONAB projected the Brazil corn crop at 108.1 million tonnes, an increase from their February estimate of 105.5 mln tonnes.  They also increased their projected Brazil soybean production estimate to 135.1 mln tonnes vs 133.8 mln tonnes in February.  The Buenos Aires Grains Exchange also released its updated projections for Argentina crops today.  Soybean production in Argentina was projected at 44 mln tonnes and corn production estimate was also lower; set at 45 mln tonnes.  Both were set at 46 mln tonnes in February.  China has been absent from the US market for quite some time now and it seems as though the market may have forgotten that.  It does feel like some business did get done today for June and July so we will be looking for a sales announcement in the near future.  An export sale of any size involving China would be enough to re-light the fire underneath this market.