Grain prices heated up Monday on Chicago, as widespread cool weather is moving its way through the central U.S., even if wheat contracts finished session with lightly mixed results.
Much colder weather on the way to the central U.S., of course, won’t be good for planting progress.
Frost concerns continue to circulate for the southern Plains of the US with cold weather forecast through tonight and worries about frost nip.
Forecasts are calling for an inch of snow across the western Hard Red Winter wheat belt into the western corn belt mid-week, with lows around 20F, although many are expecting the snow and short duration to keep soil temperatures from dropping substantially.
Energy prices, meantime, were lightly mixed.
Crude oil inched 0.25% higher.
Gasoline saw fractional gains, while diesel dropping around 0.25%.
Weakening tech stocks were one of several culprits for yesterday’s movements.
On Wall St., indeed, the Dow retreated from record highs, losing 123 points trading to 34,067.
The U.S. Dollar, meantime, softened moderately.
Coronavirus cases continue to surge in India even as Europe looks towards some possible easing of restrictions.
Large moves in US hog prices have triggered another increase in futures price limits.
From tomorrow the daily limit will be US4.5 cents per pound.
Coming back to grains market, corn prices grabbed gains of more than 1% on a round of technical buying spurred by cold weather that is expected to hamper planting progress in the short term while, corn basis bids, were steady to soft.
Soybean prices rose in tandem with corn on the same weather fundamentals.
In deed, its expect some planting delays this week due to much colder-than-normal temperatures moving across the Plains and Midwest.
Soybean basis bids were steady to firm to start the week.
Wheat prices, in contrast, were lightly mixed in spite a bullish set of export inspection data from USDA and a weakening U.S. Dollar that lent some overall support.
Also the below-normal temperatures that set to sweep across the Plains this week, would had to offer a support at prices.
However, they closed mixed.
Regular weekly export inspections from the US brought no surprises.
Corn export inspections fell moderately lower for the week ending April 15, landing at 60.0 million bushels.
That was also near the bottom of trade guesses, which ranged between 55.1 million and 82.7 million bushels.
China was the No. 1 destination, with 22.1 million bushels.
Cumulative totals for the 2020/22 marketing year remain far ahead of last year’s pace with 1.545 billion bushels since the start of September.
Soybean export inspections spilled 45% week-over-week, falling to 6.8 million bushels.
That was closer to the low end of trade estimates, which ranged between 3.7 million and 14.7 million bushels.
Mexico was the No. 1 destination, with 2.7 million bushels. Cumulative totals for the 2020/21 marketing year still have a commanding lead over last year’s pace, with 2.021 billion bushels.
In contrast, wheat export inspections saw week-over-week increases of 33% after reaching 22.5 million bushels.
That was above the entire range of trade guesses, which came in between 9.2 million and 20.2 million bushels.
The Philippines topped all destinations, with 4.8 million bushels.
Cumulative totals for the 2020/21 marketing year currently have a slim lead over last year’s pace, with 809.2 million bushels.
The milo/sorghum inspections, with 0.314Mt, imply that there’s under 0.4Mt of remaining (declared) sales to China relative to last week’s sales figures.
But there’s still a massive chunk of ‘unknown destination’ sales reported on the books.
The US crop progress report was released after the close of the sessions, with winter wheat good-to-excellent rating unchanged at 53pc, corn planting at 8pc, and beans planting at 3pc, all of which were about as expected.
Spring wheat planting at 19pc continues to reflect the warm/dry conditions across the northern Plains.
On European market, the weather is more and more settling on spring crops, with rapeseed that shows the greatest performance, again in a context of poor harvest prospects for the next season.
The crushing activity in the EU remains strong, despite the firmness of the seeds, so the prices of vegetable oils continued to rise.
The very tight balance sheets, are demonstred also by Canada which will import rapeseed from Ukraine next August.
This is an unprecedented element for this great exporting country.
About wheat, in a reflection of the messy trade flows this year in the EU (after the tighter crops and rally in feed grains) Reuters has reported on a bulk wheat cargo of 45,000 t, heading from Romania to Dunkirk this week, with some speculation that it may see some of the grain delivered against the Matif board.
Consequently on Euronext, wheat prices due in May fell back while the 2021 harvest dates were more firm.
The latest data from the European Commission shows EU 2020/21 corn imports at 475.2 million bushels through April 18, which is a drop of 28% compared to last year’s pace.
European Union soybean imports for the 2020/21 marketing year reached 433.2 million bushels through April 18, staying slightly ahead of last year’s pace so far.
In contrast, EU soymeal imports are down moderately year-over-year this season, as are 2020/21 EU palm oil imports.
Rapeseed imports into the EU so far stand at 5.36 million tonnes compared to 5.13 million last year.
European Union soft wheat exports for the 2020/21 marketing year reached 784.1 million bushels through April 18, which is significantly below last year’s pace of 1.042 billion bushels.
EU barley exports are slightly ahead of last year’s pace, meantime, with 294.9 million bushels.
From Black Sea basin, the world’s largest producer and exporter of sunflower oil, Ukraine, will limit its exports until the end of the current season.
Indeed, yesterday, the Ministry of Economy and Ukroliyaprom, the association of crushers, agreed on the maximum volume of sunflower oil exports for the 2020/21 MY season at 5.38 Mt against 6.9 Mt during the season past.
During the first 7 months of the campaign, Ukraine has already exported 3.5 Mt, or 2/3 of the limit volume.
Black Sea region weather maps, however, still looking good for later this week for most of the winter wheat belt with a fairly widespread inch forecast.
From Austarlia, weather maps were holding dry with no substantial changes, but extended runs are pulling back slightly on the rainfall chances for WA into next week.
Grains market were a touch firmer yesterday for new crop.
Also old crop volume picked up slightly, as exporters looked to cover some front end demand.
New crop wheat and barley bids were up $3-4/t, while WA canola was bid $725/t.
Chinese reserve auctions on wheat are making headlines again after the traded level dropped to just over 10 per cent.
China, indeed, sold another 15.1 million bushels of its state wheat reserves on auction last week.
Most of the grain offered reportedly being feed grade.
China has offered six other wheat auctions since the beginning of March to help local feed users combat high grain prices.
Tonight we will see how the sessions will close.
