Planting Progress Leaps Forward

In the overnight session the grains traded lower with corn down 2 1/4 cents, soybeans down 3/4 of a cent and wheat down 1/2 a penny. The U.S. dollar is trading over half a percent lower and crude oil is up 83 cents. Traders are preparing for the May WASDE report which will be released at 11 AM CST this morning.

Crop progress showed strong planting progress for the grains this week and improved wheat conditions after the market closed yesterday. Corn planting jumped 20 percent last week with 75 percent of the crop now planted, well ahead of the four year average of 57 percent complete during the same time period. Soybean planting pace is also ahead of the four year average with 31 percent of the crop in the ground compared to 20 percent usually. Spring wheat is now 87 percent planted, up from 75 percent planted last week and now 36 percentage points ahead of the four year average.

Export inspections were within analyst expectations for corn, soybeans and wheat. Corn showed 1,135,906 million metric tons inspected for export which was within the 900,000-1,150,000 metric tons expected. Wheat reported 378,407 metric tons and soybeans reported 263,263 metric tons which were both increases from last week.

The average trade guess for the May supply and demand report expects old crop wheat and corn stocks to increase from last report. Wheat ending stocks are expected to climb to 693 million bushels from 684 million bushels in April. Corn ending stocks are also expected to climb to 1.864 billion bushels from 1.827 billion bushels last month. The average trade guess expects to see soybean ending stocks fall by 10 million bushels to 360 million bushels as strong weekly export sales will most likely force the USDA to revise demand numbers higher. The average trade guess pegs new crop ending stocks for wheat at 750 million bushels, corn at 1.752 billion bushels and soybean carryout at 443 million bushels.

Keep a close watch on South America production as both Argentina and Brazil has had better than expected harvests. The average analyst guess expects Argentina corn production to increase nearly 1 million metric tons to 24.95 MMT and soybean production to increase 1.5 MMT to 58.5 MMT. Brazil corn production is also expected to increase to 76.87 MMT from 75MMT in the April report. Brazil soybean production is expected to stay mostly unchanged at 94 MMT.

—Cody Bills