|
Corn continues to dominate headline focus this week, tying as the biggest loser on price movement today with wheat.
Yesterday's technical bounce off of the 200-day moving average for the March corn contract, led to further weakness today, with corn drastically cutting its long position by a whopping 18,000 contracts. With the 100-day moving average sitting at 4.28 1/2, we might start to move toward that price for support if we cannot crack through this threshold.
On top of the technical weakness, the grain complex was faced with fundamental weakness as both corn and soybean weekly export sales fell short of trade expectations. Marketing year to date corn export sales still exceed the seasonal pace needed to hit USDA's upwardly revised target by 204 million bushels, down from 215 million the previous week. Marketing year to date soybean export sales exceed the seasonal pace needed to hit USDA's target by 104 million bushels, versus 105 million the previous week.
Surprisingly, soybeans remained the sole positive today, despite CONAB updating its forecast for Brazil’s record-breaking corn and soybean production. The latest estimate for Brazil’s soybean production is 166.211 million metric tons, a 12.5% increase from last year and a slight upward revision from last month. Brazil's corn production is estimated at 119.633 million metric tons, 0.2% lower than last month’s estimate but still 3.4% above last year’s level.
Today's silver lining was that the USDA confirmed the sale of 334,000 tonnes of U.S. soybeans for delivery to unknown destinations in 2024/25. This will show up in next week's export sales data.
Funds were thought to have been mixed with corn and wheat sellers and beans a buyer.
| 
