3/17/2023

Corn and soybeans traded higher in steady fashion during the overnight session but gave back all gains immediately following the morning break.  Corn came back just enough to finish 1-2 cents higher and soybeans recovered roughly 5 cents off of their lows late in the day.  The USDA announced more corn sales to China this morning with 191k tonnes confirmed as a follow-up to yesterday's flash sale of 641k tonnes.  That's a 4-day total of 83 million bushels exclusively to China all for delivery during the 2022/23 marketing year.  Export net sales totals last week were within trade expectations but encouraging.  Corn sales netted 1.236 mln tonnes and soybeans came in at 665k tonnes.  May 23 corn futures go into the weekend nearly 30 cents above their 7-month low set last week, Dec 23 corn has managed to gain back only 10 cents.  There has not been much discussion about the Prospective Plantings report due out two weeks from today but early estimates have been around 92 million acres for corn.  Balance sheets show the available grain supply growing going into the 2024 but we do not have much room for error.