4/13/2023

Corn and soybeans looked to be putting together a day of stronger trade but end the session with corn down 1-3 cents and soybeans picking up modest gains of 1-5 cents. The weekly export sales report may have taken some of the energy out of trade with figures coming in on the low end of expectations. 528k tonnes of corn and 365k tonnes of soybeans were sold last week. The USDA announced an export sale to China at 8 a.m. this morning. The sale totaled 327,000 tonnes of corn with 191k tonnes for delivery in 2022/23 and 136k tonnes for delivery in 2023/24. This is the first new crop corn sale to China. The lack of discussion on planting pace in the market tells a lot. Planting season is pretty well a full go anywhere south of I-90 and the extended forecasts look good for fields to become more suitable for work. With drought conditions in the western corn belt mostly sustained throughout winter, ground will likely become fit faster than average and encourage a quick planting pace.

The corn charts are coiling/tightening near the middle of their 2-month ranges, along with moving average convergence, fueling another breakout that is likely to occur before the end of April. Trade seems a little confused on direction right now in contrast to February when a lack of news created dead period of the market with sideways trade.