Acreage Expectations

In the overnight session the grains were mixed with corn up 1 cent, soybeans down 5 3/4 cents and wheat down 1 1/4 cents. The U.S. dollar is trading 1/2 a percent higher and crude oil is trading up 24 cents. Two major USDA reports will be released at 11 AM CST including the Planted Acreage report and the Quarterly Grain Stocks report. Below are the expectations for both reports.

In a poll of analysts conducted by Reuters the average forecast for corn acreage is 89.292 million acres. This is up from the 89.199 million acres of corn forecast on March 31st. For soybeans and wheat, analysts are expecting to see a half million acre increase from the March 31st report to 85.171 million acres and 55.867 million acres respectively. However, whatever the USDA releases this morning will likely come under scrutiny since the survey was conducted in early June. With slower than average soybean planting pace and saturating rains throughout the Midwest some fields may not get seeded.

Crop progress was released yesterday at 3 PM CST after the market closed and showed another drop in corn and soybean conditions. The U.S corn rated good-to-excellent slipped 3 percentage points to 68 percent from 71 percent last week. Ohio’s crop conditions declined notably from 61 percent rated good-to-excellent last week to 42 percent this week. Soybean conditions also slipped falling to 63 percent rated good to excellent from 65 percent last week. Soybean planting increased 4 percent this week but planting pace still lags significantly in Missouri which is only 62 percent complete compared to the four year average of 94 percent complete. Wheat plantings increased this week to 38 percent but still lag the four year average of 46 percent complete by the last week in June.

In a Reuter's poll of analysts the average analyst guess for the quarterly grain stocks is 718 million bushels for wheat, 4.555 billion bushels of corn and 670 million bushels of soybeans. This would be a draw down in grain stocks from 1.124 billion bushels of wheat, 7.745 billion bushels of corn and 1.334 billion bushels of soybeans reported on March 1st. Traders will be watching corn stocks closely to gauge feed demand which could be negatively influenced by the bird flu this year.

—Cody Bills