Tuesday was a mixed day for our markets. Harvest corn closed up 4 1/4, spot soybeans closed down 6 1/2, spot winter wheat closed 1/4 and spot spring wheat closed up 5. In the overnight trade corn, soybeans and winter wheat are negative with spring wheat mixed. Oil closed down $0.63 yesterday at $58.25 per barrel. It is stronger in trading this morning with it now valued at $58.61 per barrel. Our dollar has traded between a low of $0.721 US and a high of $0.723 US over the last 24 hours. This morning it is valued right in the middle of the range at $0.722 US.
The USDA released their December WASDE report yesterday and they did make some small changes to the balance sheet for corn. They did not change production numbers for either corn or soybeans for this year out of the US. Any chances to production numbers was pushed back to the January WASDE report when the final figures are expected to be announced for the growing year.
Corn exports were increased by 125 million bushels up to 3.2 billion bushels for the marketing year. This increased the already new record large corn export number. Even with the increased exports corn ending stocks are still projected just over 2 billion bushels for this year which is still about 400 million bushels above last year.
It was probably expected that soybean exports would have been decreased with the slow sales this year to China. Unfortunately no decrease was made as the USDA must be confident that sales to China will be picking up the pace sometime soon. On the China front more announcements out of the US that the expected date of the 12 million tonnes talked about with the yet unsigned ‘Trade Pact’ has been pushed back possibly to the end of February. There was another announcement that these purchases would occur by the end of the crop year. However, no explanation was given as to what crop year they are talking about. Confusion and misdirection seems to be the name of the game as to the ‘Trade Pact’ details.
The domestic balance sheet in the US was unchanged for the wheat market. However changes were made to various production levels in other countries with the net result of 9 million more tonnes of wheat being produced. This should be considered negative for the wheat market going forward as Russia and Ukraine will be trying to sell more wheat at decreased prices to keep foreign currency flowing back into their countries.
Delores Seiter | 613-880-7458
Bob Orr | 613-720-1271
Tony Mitchell | 613-227-2525
Office | 613-489-0956
