4/4/2024

Thursday's session was a long, slow grind for corn, soybeans, and wheat.  Corn bounced around, ranging from 2 lower to 3 higher throughout the day.  Soybeans were steady on the higher side throughout the overnight and traded out to 4 cents higher but were immediately sold off at the 8:30 re-opening where they spent most of the remainder of the session.  A late push found a 1-3 cent higher finish for corn and a mixed finish for soybeans.  Mexico continues to add purchases of U.S. grain for the current marketing year.  This morning, the USDA confirmed the sale of 152,404 tonnes of soybeans for delivery to Mexico during the 2023/24 marketing year.  The weekly export sales report did not give us much to work with to push us higher.  Corn was within expectations but on the low-end at 948k tonnes sold last week.  Soybean sales were a miss at 194k tonnes.  The combination of slowing sales and shipments for soybean exports means we will need the crush side to continue to take as many bushels as they can handle to meet the current USDA ending stocks that are forecasted.  A concern with South American production would also be a benefit.