5/13/2021

The market gives us our first taste of the new daily price limit in corn with the Jul 21-Sep 22 contracts trading 40 lower on the day.  Jul 21 finished limit lower with the balance of those months able to muster enough buying interest to close 2-5 cents off the limit.  Funds and spec money started dumping their positions after the report dropped yesterday and liquidation carried over into today.  Our report told us that we won't be running out of corn or beans anytime soon but soybean inventory is still very tight.  Will be interesting to see if this has an effect on basis.  Weekly export sales for old crop were light with corn posting 113 mln tonnes of net cancellations and beans at 94 mln tonnes sold.  New crop boasted 2.084 mln tonnes of corn sales.  China has been actively buying new crop corn and cancelling old crop purchases, with the USDA announcing a sale of 680k tonnes sold to China for the 21/22 marketing year.  I expect more of this in the future with US new crop at a steep discount to old crop and we may see carryout increase before we get our final ending stocks number.  Marketing year sales to date for corn are still 206 mln bu ahead of the pace needed to meet the USDA target and shipments are 104 mln bu ahead of the pace needed.  Need to keep a sharp eye on Brazil as things do not add up down there.  A drought stricken first crop of corn, an ever-increasing bean crop, and a sudden drought stressed second crop of corn doesn't make sense.