What You Need to Know for Thursday's WASDE Report

In the overnight session the grains traded slightly higher with corn up 1/2 a cent, wheat up 1 3/4 of a cent and wheat up 1/2 a penny. The market will be receiving the EIA ethanol production numbers today and the monthly WASDE report will be released on April 9th at 11 AM CST.

The average analyst expectations for the WASDE report according to a Reuters poll of 20 analysts is as follows. The average guess among the analysts polled for wheat ending stocks is 692 million bushels, up one million bushels from the March report. Corn ending stocks are expected to be reported at 1.854 billion bushels up from 1.777 billion bushels reported in the March WASDE report. Soybean ending stocks are expected to come in around 370 million bushels which would be a decline of 15 million bushels from the March report.

Traders will also be following South American production which is wrapping up harvest in many areas. Argentina corn production is expected to be revised slightly higher than in March to 23.90 million metric tons from 23.50. Argentina soybean production is also expected to increase to 57.23 million metric tons from 56 last month. Brazil production is expected to be revised slightly lower than March with corn production expected to decline to 74.82 million metric tons from 75.00 in March. Soybean production is also expected to decline to 94.18 million metric tons from 94.5 in March.

Across the Midwest rains will be keeping producers out of the fields through the end of the week. Precipitation will be focused on the northwestern part of the Midwest early on and shift to the central and southeastern part by weeks end. Rains will continue to halt planting along the Mississippi river delta.

—Cody Bills