Good Morning,
Nice spring rains and higher markets to start the day. Corn is up 8 soybeans are up 5 and wheat is up 12.
For the week ended Apr 2, ethanol production was 975,000 barrels per day (the uptick is less than expected by analysts, who had forecast production to rise by as much as 70,000 barrels per day this week); up 1% versus a week ago, up 45.1% versus a year ago. Stocks were 20.6 mil barrels (down 500,000 barrels from the previous week’s report–this drop exceeds the expectations of analysts who had forecast a drop of as much as 400,000 barrels); down 2.2% versus last week, down 23.8% versus last year.
Weekly export sales were nothing too exciting with old corn coming in at 29.8 million bushel compared to 74.4 million on the 10 week average. Soybeans were negative 3.4 million bushels due to cancelations. The 10 week average for soybeans is 12.8 million bushel.
Estimates for tomorrow’s WASDE report are for the 2021/22 corn carryout near 1.379 billion bushel, soybean carryout at 118 million bushel and wheat at 846 million bushel. This report will be released at 11am.
US weather has a good amount of rain coming to the Central Corn belt and a lot of rain for the Delta. Totals in Illinois will reach 2 inches where in the South they will get up to 5 inches. Planting delays will continue in the Delta. The Western US shows more humidity on the maps this morning than yesterday, with most of the rain down in Texas. The Dakotas looks to miss most any rain as the system sets up further to the East up into Minnesota.
While things look very bullish in the corn market right now, there are some reasons for anyone long corn to be cautious. Reports from ADM that China will not be taking all the corn that they currently have purchased and will be cancelling or rolling those purchases out to next year. There are also reports from ethanol plants across the Midwest that are looking to shutdown this summer due to corn shortages in their area and extremely high basis levels. One or both of these scenarios playing out would dramatically change the carryout numbers and send the markets in a freefall.
Have a Safe Day!
Garry Gard
920-348-6844
