3/18/2021

Another sale announcement with China purchasing 696,600 tonnes of corn for 2020/2021, bringing the three-day total to 121 million bushels but it wasn't enough to spark buying interest from the fund and spec money.  Commodity markets all around were strongly lower today, with the stand-out being crude oil trading 7.5% lower, pushing it below $60/bbl for the first time in two weeks.  The recent precipitation in US growing regions over the past week was realized on the updated USDA drought monitor released today.  Along with some rain in Argentina, this applied some sell pressure to the grains.  It seems strange that we've had 3 big grain sales to our biggest export customer this week and the market has reacted negatively.  Net export sales for the week were above expectations for corn at 986k tonnes.  Bean sales were on target at 202k tonnes but were also evidence that Brazil is becoming the preferred source for soybeans.  Today's trade volume was some of the lightest we have seen this calendar year and, with the market friendly news, it's tough to agree that the board needed to be beaten up this bad in one day.  May beans closed the day at 1392'2, looking to test support of the 50-day moving average at 1388'2.