Very Strong Soybean Export Sales

In the overnight session corn slid ¼ cent, soybeans increased 4 ¼ cents and wheat fell 3 ¼ cents. This morning another reportable sale including 118,000 metric tons of soybeans was announced for delivery to China in 14/15 marketing year.

Export sales disappointed this morning for corn and wheat with both grains weekly sales falling 57% from the previous week. Corn booked only 387,000 metric tons, well below expectations of between 600,000 and 800,000 metric tons. Corn has booked 62% of this marketing years expected sales which is ahead of the seasonal pace needed to meet the USDA’s forecast. Wheat sales came in at 151,000 which is a marketing year low and will likely affect prices negatively in this morning’s trade action. Soybeans beat analyst expectations which ranged between 500,000-700,000 metric tons by booking 910,000. Soybean sales were up 49% from last week and are well ahead of pace to meet USDA expectations. With 34 more weeks left of this marketing year soybeans have already booked 90% of USDA forecasted export sales leaving the door open for the USDA to revise expectations higher again in the January WASDE report.

Ethanol production fell 23,000 barrels per day in an EIA report on Wednesday bringing total ethanol production for the week to 949,000 barrels per day. Ethanol stocks rose to 18.85 million bushels, which is the largest ethanol stocks we’ve seen since March of 2013. Despite the decline over the past two weeks, this marketing year’s ethanol production is up 4.9% compared to 2013-14 compared to a .3% increase projected by the USDA.

—Cody Bills