Good morning Farmer Family …
US farm markets were mostly lower past Friday.
Corn prices settled with fractional losses, around 0.2% down.
Soybeans ended the day with the deferred contracts above the $14/bu mark, while November contracts stayed under that mark, although they closed the end week session 0.4% higher.
Soymeal added another 2.41% to the upside on the day, pushing Dec meal to a weekly gain of $7.50/ton.
Bean oil, meantime, ended the session with 0.71%.
The wheat complex faded, with Chicago SRW contracts going home 1.1% lower, Kansas City HRW closed down by 0.78%.
Minneapolis spring wheat was 0.58% weaker at the bell.
For the week, corn prices slipped later in the week, and December was down 0.51% from Friday to Friday.
Soybeans started out the week with a rough Monday, then, the contract climbed back during the week, but was still down 0.56% since the prior Friday.
Product values have been the strong part of the complex during the week, as soymeal was up 1.79% and soy oil was 0.41% higher.
Wheat contracts have fallen sharply, meantime.
Chicago SRW, indeed, was down 2.53% for the week, Kansas City HRW was 2.46% lower and Minneapolis spring wheat went 1.72% in the red.
A strong U.S. Dollar continued to weigh on corn and wheat prices, generating worries that the US grains could not competitively priced for some international buyers.
A firmer dollar makes U.S. commodities more expensive to holders of other currencies.
Confirming this, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported lower-than-expected weekly corn export sales on Thursday.
Chinese purchases of 3.6 million tonnes of U.S. corn as of Oct. 20 are down from 11.9 million and 10.6 million tonnes by the same date in 2021 and 2020, respectively, according to USDA data.
Soybeans, on their parts, were partily supported by a two large export sales reported by USDA on Friday, when private exporters reported having sold 126,000 metric tons of soybeans for delivery to China during the 2022/2023 marketing year and 198,000 metric tons of soybeans for delivery to Spain during the 2022/2023 marketing year
Grain prices, however, had come under additional pressure in the end week session as much-needed rain improved conditions for 2022/23 corn and wheat crops in drought-hit Argentina.
Rain is also expected in the USA from the Mid-South all through the eastern Corn Belt until Tuesday, with some areas gathering another 1.5” or more during this time, although the Plains should stay completely dry.
NOAA’s outlook predicts seasonally wet weather for most areas west of the Mississippi River between November 4 and November 10, with warmer-than-normal conditions likely for the Midwest and Plains.
The USDA reported that, as of October 23, 79% of winter wheat was planted, advancing 10 points from prior week and 1 point ahead of the 5-year average.
The emergence of newly planted winter wheat was 49%, 11 points behind the 5-year average of 56%.
A wide swath of the U.S. received above-normal rainfall past week, followed by cooler-than-normal temperatures.
Though the rain was insufficient to show real improvement to the wide-ranging drought conditions, with this new weather forecast, there are more hopes soil moisture will see measurable improvement, especially in the Pacific Northwest, Montana, and Idaho, where rain already halted expansion of dry conditions.
These beneficial rains might be also helpful for the MS River level, though the gauges at St. Louis and Memphis remain near recent deficit levels in the forecast through November 10th.
Meantime, corn basis bids firmed 8 cents at an Ohio elevator and tracked 3 cents lower at an Illinois ethanol plant while holding steady elsewhere across the central U.S. on Friday.
Soybean basis bids tumbled 43 cents lower at an Ohio elevator, while firming 7 to 20 cents higher at two other Midwestern locations and holding steady elsewhere across the central U.S..
As for wheat, past week, basis was down in both the Gulf and Pacific Northwest (PNW) except for SRW basis, which was higher.
Gulf basis was pressured by exporter’s efforts to recruit non-routine buyers to the Gulf.
However, a strong corn and bean export program and the low river levels along the Mississippi River created more need for rail freight, a factor keeping SRW firm.
In the PNW, basis fell significantly due to slacking demand across all wheat classes.
The fall in basis past week allowed for more competitive prices, boosting US wheat sales a bit.
Meantime, the end week news about the suspension of the Black Sea Grain Deal, likely will set global grain prices higher.
In Asian trading, indeed, US wheat prices have rallied between 3-5% on this morning, corn rose over 2%, soybean added around 1%.
Particularly, the most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade jumped 5.4% to $8.73-3/4 a bushel as of 04:55 GMT, after climbing earlier in the day to $8.93 a bushel, the highest since Oct. 14.
Corn rose 2.2% to $6.96 a bushel and soybeans added 0.8% to $14.12 a bushel.
In energy markets, oil prices eased about 1% last Friday.
Chinese cities ramped up COVID-19 curbs on Thursday, sealing up buildings and locking down districts after China registered 1,506 new COVID infections on Oct. 27, the National Health Commission said, up from 1,264 new cases a day earlier.
The International Monetary Fund expects China’s growth to slow to 3.2% this year, a downgrade of 1.2 points from its April projection.
In this context, Brent futures, fell $1.19, or 1.2%, to settle at $95.77 a barrel.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell $1.18, or 1.3%, to $87.90.
U.S. gasoline futures dropped about 3%, while U.S. diesel futures rose about 5% to their highest since mid June.
However, China’s demand for refined fuel and natural gas was set to grow year-on-year in the fourth quarter in tandem with an expected economic recovery as Beijing rolls out more stimulus policy.
Data on Thursday showed a strong rebound in U.S. gross domestic product in the third quarter.
The German economy also grew unexpectedly in the third quarter, data showed on Friday.
Also, the market remains wary of the impending deadlines for European purchases of Russian crude.
U.S. oil exports rose to a record last week.
In this context, the OPEC is likely to maintain its view world oil demand will rise for another decade.
For the week, Brent rose 2.4% notching its second consecutive weekly gain, and WTI was up 3.4%.
On this morning, oil prices fell over $1 following weaker-than-expected factory activity data out of China and on concerns its widening COVID-19 curbs will curtail demand.
The euro zone is likely entering a recession with its October business activity contracting at the fastest in nearly two years.
Particularly, Brent crude futures, dropped $1.10, or 1.2%, to $94.67 a barrel by 07:10 GMT.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was at $86.83 a barrel, down $1.07, or 1.2%.
Brent and WTI, however, are on track for their first monthly gains since May, up 7.7% and 9.3% respectively, so far.
It should to note, global oil-and-gas giants including Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Equinor had already posted huge third-quarter profits, feeding criticism from consumer groups in the United States and Europe.
In ocean freigth markets, the Baltic Exchange’s dry bulk sea freight index last Friday marked its worst week since early August, primarily weighed down by weakness in the larger capesize and panamax vessel segments.
The overall index, indeed, fell 78 points, or about 4.8%, to 1,534.
The main index fell 16% for the week, also marking a third consecutive weekly drop.
Particularly, the capesize index fell 78 points, or about 4.5%, to 1,670 and dropped 19.4% in its worst week since late August.
Average daily earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 150,000-tonne cargoes such as coal and steel-making ingredient iron ore used in construction, fell $648 to $13,852.
The panamax index shed 83 points, or about 4.4%, to 1,817. It fell 15.3% for the week, also a worst since late August.
Average daily earnings for panamaxes, which usually carry coal or grain cargoes of about 60,000 tonnes to 70,000 tonnes, dropped $750 to $16,350.
The supramax index fell 89 points to 1,483.
In equity markets, Wall Street capped another strong week past Friday.
The S&P 500 rose 2.5% or 93.76 points to 3,901.06, and posted its first back-to-back weekly gains since August.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 2.6% or 828.52 points to 32,861.80, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite climbed 2.9% or 309.78 points to 11,102.45.
Smaller company stocks also gained ground, lifting the Russell 2000 index by 2.3% or 40.60 points to 1,846.92.
For the week, the Nasdaq, notched a 2.2% gain.
The S&P 500 rose 3.95%.
The Dow jumped 5.7%.
The Russell 2000 index rose 6%.
Investors welcomed solid profits from Apple and other companies, thus, technology stocks led the rally.
Apple made even fatter profits than expected.
Its shares rose 7.6%.
Intel jumped 10.7%.
Gilead Sciences soared 12.9%, and T-Mobile US gained 7.4%.
Investors were also encouraged by a report on consumer spending.
Sep U.S. personal income showed the expected rise of +0.4% m/m, while the Sep personal spending report of +0.6% m/m was a bit stronger than expectations of +0.4%.
The Q3 employment cost index rose +1.2%, in line with market expectations.
PCE deflator report was no worse than expectations.
Friday’s Sep PCE deflator report of +0.3% m/m and +6.2% y/y was, indeed, close to market expectations.
The Sep core PCE deflator report of +0.5% m/m and +5.1% y/y was also close to market expectations.
The PCE deflator is the Fed’s preferred inflation measure.
The Sep headline PCE deflator report of +6.2% y/y was unchanged from August and remained 0.8 points below June’s 40-year high of +7.0%.
The Sep core deflator of +5.1% y/y was up from Aug’s +4.9% but remained 0.3 points below the 39-year high of +5.4% posted earlier this year in February and March.
The final-Oct U.S. consumer sentiment index rose by +0.1 point from the preliminary-Oct level, which was stronger than expectations for a -0.2 point downward revision.
The consumer sentiment index has rebounded sharply by a total of +9.9 points in the past four months to October’s 6-month high of 59.9 from June’s record low of 50.0.
However, there was negative news for the housing sector.
Friday’s Sep U.S. pending home sales report of -10.2% m/m and -30.4% y/y was much weaker than expectations of -4.0% m/m and provided another indication that the U.S. real estate market is in the early stages of caving in due to the sharp rise in mortgage rates.
The US economy at its core is resilient, but a the same time inflation is easing and that is what the Fed wants and the market too.
That’s helped fuel hopes on Wall Street for a stop to rate interest increase, by the Federal Reserve.
The widespread expectation, however, is for it to push through another increase that’s triple the usual size this week, before it potentially makes a smaller increase in December.
In this context, the yield on the two-year Treasury, which tends to track expectations for Fed action, on Friday rose to 4.42% from 4.28% late Thursday.
The 10-year yield, which helps set rates for mortgages and many other loans, climbed to 4.01% from 3.93%.
On this morning, Asian stock markets mostly rose.
Tokyo, Sydney and Seoul advanced while Hong Kong and Shanghai declined.
Particularly, the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo gained 1.8% to 27,587.46, as the government reported that retail sales rose in September, though industrial production weakened.
The Shanghai Composite Index shed 0.8% to 2,893.48 after a manufacturing survey showed a weakening in production and demand.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.3% to 14,671.10.
The Kospi in Seoul added 1.1% to 2,293.61 and Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 gained 1.2% to 6,863.50.
New Zealand and Southeast Asian markets also gained.
In currency trading, the dollar index on Friday rose by +0.08% to 110.545, founding support from stronger-than-expected U.S. personal spending and consumer sentiment reports.
The dollar also found support from the rise in the 10-year T-note yield.
The yen fell more than 0.8% against the dollar to 147.46, undercut as the BOJ maintained its extraordinarily easy monetary policy, bucking the global trend for interest rate hikes to knock out inflation.
The BOJ, indeed, lefts its interest rate and QE policies unchanged at the 2-day policy meeting that ended last Friday.
For the week, the yen was down around 0.17%.
The euro lifted 0.03% to $0.9965, past Friday.
However it took a more dovish tone after the European Central Bank raised rates by 75 basis points, as expected.
For the week, the euro was up around 0.90%.
The common currency was somewhat supported by German data, which showed that Europe’s biggest economy unexpectedly avoided a recession in the third quarter, while inflation, driven by a painful energy standoff with Russia, surprised to the upside.
Sterling rose against the dollar, adding to gains earlier in the week following the appointment of Rishi Sunak as Britain’s third prime minister in two months.
The pound was up 0.43% at $1.1614, for a weekly rise of around 2.69%.
The greenback was under pressure past week ahead of the Federal Reserve’s Nov. 1-2 policy setting meeting.
The central bank is expected to raise rates by 75 basis points for the fourth-straight time before “pivoting” to a slower pace of rate hikes, which the market has begun pricing in.
However, the more dovish ECB and the Bank of Canada’s smaller-than-expected interest rate hike past week helped drive expectations of a Fed pivot.
In this context, the dollar index, settled down from prior week’s 112.17 to close at 110.545.
On this morning, the dollar rose to 147.95 yen.
The euro edged down to 99.44 cents.
Going back to analyzing the other ag markets …
In Canada, producers’ deliveries of common wheat in week 12 of the shipping season, were at 491,5k mt.
That was slightly firmer from 471,4k posted a week erlier.
Deliveries of durum wheat also increased to 148.2k mt from 124.9k mt a week earlier.
Meantime, Canada exported 533.9k mt of common wheat in week 12 of the shipping season.
That was near the double from 333.1k mt posted a week earlier.
Durum wheat exports, also rose at 161.7k mt, up from 130.9k mt a week earlier.
Consequentially, total Commercial Stocks of common wheat stood at 2.916,3k mt, down from 2.972,2k mt a week earlier.
Ditto for durum, total commercial stocks were at 833,0k mt, slightly down from 834,7k mt posted the prior week.
Cumulative exports for common wheat are now at 2.958,9k mt, still down from 4.203,8k mt year ago to date.
As for durum wheat, cumulative exports reached 739,3k mt, that was higher from 722,0k mt year ago to date.
Cash bids for durum wheat have been slightly weaker past week.
Looking at the average regional price of $486.09/mt as of Oct. 28, indeed, it is $0.33/mt lower compared the week earlier.
From Central America, Mexico’s agriculture ministry has indicated that the country’s 2014 ban on genetically modified corn would not be amended.
Because of that, Mexico’s U.S. imports could be cut in half when that ban is enacted.
“There are many alternatives to importing non-GMO yellow corn from the United States,” asserted deputy agriculture minister Victor Suarez earlier this week.
Mexico currently exports around 17 MMT of corn annually from the U.S.
From South America, as much-needed rain improved conditions for 2022/23 corn and wheat crops in drought-hit Argentina.
However, Argentina’s core farming region is likely to produce just 1.34 million tonnes of wheat, which would mark an 83% drop versus a bumper crop a year earlier, the Rosario grains exchange said in a report.
The Rosario Grain Exchange has warned that the wheat crop could drop further, to 12.5-13.7 MMT.
It was the third consecutive week of steep reduction forecasts by BCR.
If realized, wheat production in Argentina would be down 40% compared to the all-time high produced last year.
Buenos Aries Grains Exchange, on its part, left their Argentine wheat forecast for 22/23 wheat at 15.2 MMT.
Buenos Aires Grain Exchange also reported that 2022-23 wheat conditions are rated 48pc fair/excellent (48pc week ago, 82pc year ago), with recent rainfall reportedly improving crop condition in central and southern parts of Buenos Aires province.
Meantime, BAGE reported 22% of the 22/23 Argentine corn crop was planted.
In Brazil, Parana, the second-largest wheat-producing state in Brazil, will harvest between 3.7 and 3.5 MMT of wheat this season, said Deral, a state agency.
However, analysts said that around half the crop would have quality issues due to late-season rains while 300-400 TMT would be unusable as milling wheat.
Thus, Brazil will need to seek alternative wheat sellers amid Argentina crop failure and internal quality iusses.
United States, Canada and even Russia are possible suppliers.
Meantime, the first ship with recently harvested wheat for export is scheduled to leave the port of Rio Grande on November 25.
The information is from consultancy T&F.
The ship Cemtex Creation will carry 23,000 tons of grain from Rio Grande do Sul to Vietnam.
In the last cycle, this state’s exports totaled 3 million tons.
In 2022/23, most consultants forecast that the volume will reach 2.5 million.
The harvest should be 4.7 million tons, according to the state’s Company for Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (Emater).
In Europe, France’s dismal 2022 corn crop is nearly completely harvested, with progress reaching 96% through last Monday, per the county’s FranceAgriMer farm office.
Because of hot, dry conditions throughout the season, this year’s harvest is running 28 days ahead of 2021’s pace and 18 days ahead of the prior five-year average.
The European Commission lowered its projection for EU usable production of maize (corn) in 2022/23 to 54.9 million tonnes from 55.5 million a month ago.
This figure is at its lowest since 2007.
Expected EU maize imports in the 2022/23 season were increased to 22.0 million tonnes from 21.0 million a month ago, maintaining the prospect of the biggest imports in four years..
For soft wheat, estimated usable production for 2022/23 was increased slightly, to 127.2 million tonnes from 127.0 million forecast a month ago.
The volume remained below last season’s, despite a 1 million tonne downward revision that put estimated 2021/22 output at 129.1 million tonnes.
Forecast soft wheat stocks at the end of 2022/23 were cut to 13.7 million tonnes from 14.5 million, as the revision to last year’s crop and an increase to projected animal feed demand outweighed the upward adjustment to this year’s crop and a rise in expected imports.
Projected 2022/23 soft wheat exports were kept at 36.0 million tonnes.
In oilseeds, the Commission revised up rapeseed production in 2022/23 by 0.3 million tonnes to 19.6 million, a five-year high, but trimmed expected sunflower seed output by 0.3 10.0 million.
Meantime, per latest data from FranceAgriMer, France’s 2022/23 soft wheat crop is currently being planted, with 63% in the ground through past Monday, .
That’s up from 46% a week earlier.
France’s new barley crop is now 80% planted, versus 67% in the prior week.
From the Black Sea basin, Russia suspended participation in the UN-brokered Black Sea Grain Deal on Saturday.
The stop came after a serious Ukrainian drone attack on its fleet in Crimea.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, “Ukraine attacked the Black Sea fleet near Sevastopol with 16 drones.”
“The “specialists” of the British navy helped coordinate the attack”, the Ministry added.
Russia also said that British navy personnel are responsible for the explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines.
Britain on Saturday said that Russia’s claims were false and aimed to distract attention from Russian military failures.
Ukrainian President Zelenskiy has asked the international community for a strong response.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Moscow is using a false pretext to derail the deal.
In a statement, the European Union said that “all parties must refrain from any unilateral action that could endanger” an agreement it described as a fundamental humanitarian effort!
Under the United Nations Grain deal Ukraine has exported over 9 million tonnes of corn, wheat, sunflower, products, barley, canola and soybeans.
Russia has repeatedly stated that there were serious problems over Grain Deal.
The United Nations is still in contact with the Russian authorities on the situation.
Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry said a total of 218 vessels were “effectively blocked” with around 20 MMT of grains.
Russia said on Sunday that it will have “contacts” with Turkey and the UN “soon” on the grain deal, the state news agency TASS reported, quoting Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko.
But, it added, this would only happen once all circumstances surrounding “Ukraine’s attack” on its Black Sea fleet had been clarified, and a UN Security Council meeting held.
A spokesman for the United Nations Secretary General stressed the urgency of reopen the agreement to contribute to food security around the world.
Russian Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev said Russia is ready to provide up to 500,000 tons of grain free of charge to poor countries over the next four months, with assistance from Turkey, and to supplant Ukrainian grain supplies!
“The Russian Federation is fully ready to replace Ukrainian wheat and provide affordable supplies to all interested countries,” he added.
Russian grain exporters, reducing gap with previous season by 5%, “has been already fully committed to supply their grain to countries in need”, Eduard Zernin said.
Particularly, the Russian grain import growth leaders are, Algeria with a +240%, South Africa with +100%, Sudan with +90%, Saudi Arabia with +80% and Libya with +75%.
“It is an impressive success with the current hidden barriers”, Eduard Zernin said.
Meantime, on Friday the Russian agriculture ministry revised the export tax for wheat, corn and barley.
Particularly, as of Nov. 2, the export duty on wheat will decrease to 2,923.2 from 3,028.0 rubles per ton a week earlier.
The duty on barley, also will decrease to 2,414.3 rubles from 2,524.2 rubles per ton a week earlier.
Ditto for corn, will down to 1,637.3 rubles from 1,909.1 rubles a week earlier.
This new duty rates will be in effect through November 08, inclusive.
The duties were calculated based on indicative prices: $312.7 per ton for wheat ($310.1 a week earlier), $282.5 for barley ($280.50), $264.4 for corn ($266.40).
From the Middle Kingdom, Chinese purchases of 3.6 million tonnes of U.S. corn as of Oct. 20 are down from 11.9 million and 10.6 million tonnes by the same date in 2021 and 2020, respectively, according to USDA data.
Meantime, China will auction off another 500k MT of its state reserves of imported soybeans on November 11.
China has offered multiple similarly sized sales throughout the year to boost local supplies and quell high prices.
China sold 40,257 tonnes of wheat, or 100% of the total offer, at an auction of reserves on Oct. 26, said the National Grain Trade Center on Monday.
The wheat from the 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 crops was sold at an average price of 2,843 yuan ($392.14) per tonne, it said.
($1 = 7.2499 Chinese yuan renminbi).
From South East Asia, an early start of sowing operations by farmers across India will help farmers overcome any negative impact of the heatwave that is being witnessed over the last couple of years following climate change.
At least five per cent of the normal area has been brought under cultivation by farmers across the country in the first month of the rabi season.
Overall, sowing under all rabi crops was reported at 37.75 lakh hectares (lh) as of October 28, up by 39 per cent from the same period a year ago.
The normal acreage under all rabi crops is 633.8 lh.
From Indonesia, the country plans to set its crude palm oil reference price at $770.88 per tonne for Nov. 1-15, deputy minister for economic affairs, Musdhalifah Machmud said on Friday, up from the current reference price of $713.89 per tonne.
The planned reference price would put the export tax for the period at $18 per tonne, up from the current $3.
The government has yet to issue the decree stating the Nov. 1-15 reference price.
From Australia, local markets were mixed on Friday and will be guided by offshore movements today with the expected jump in prices as the market reacts to Russia pulling out of the export deal.
After a couple of warm sunny days unfortunately the rain has returned today with showers expected to continue throughout the week for most of the eastern grain belt and SA.
Harvest is well and truly underway but will be interrupted this week by wet weather.
Quality is reportedly pretty good and oil content of canola also good for what has come off so far.
On the international trade scene, South Korean flour millers purchased an estimated 128,000t milling wheat for Jan/Feb shipment.
That included 50,000t from the US – SW (8.5pc-11pc protein) at US$340.43 – $341.74/t fob, HRW (11.5pc) at $412.01-$412.22/t fob and DNS (14pc) at 403.83-$404.03/t fob.
50,000t from Australia, – 1/2 ASW at $370s per tonne fob, 1/2 APH at $400s per tonne.
28,000t CWRS from Canada (13.5pc) at $382.59/t fob.
Pakistan allowed import of urea & wheat through open tenders after its efforts to import G2G deals failed.
In addition to approving the tender for import of 380k mt wheat for $373 per ton, ECC authorised TCP to explore import of another 800 k mt.
Particularly, the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) bought an estimated 125,000 tonnes from trading house Aston and 260,000 tonnes from Solaris, all at $373.00 a tonne c&f.
Other trading houses had been asked to match the lowest offer, but only Solaris has been willing to match the lower offer by Aston.
The wheat can be sourced from optional origins but traders expected Russia to be a substantial source.
Shipment in the tender is sought in 2022 in consignments of at least 100,000 tonnes between Nov. 13-Nov. 18, Nov. 21-Nov. 26, Nov. 29-Dec. 4, Dec. 7-Dec. 12 and Dec. 15-Dec. 20.
Shipments must be organised so that all wheat arrives in Pakistan by Jan. 10, 2023.
Watching this week’s market, the week begins with the weekly Export Inspections and Crop Progress reports.
Today is also first notice day for November soybean futures and the last trading day for October live cattle.
On Tuesday we will get the monthly Grain Crushing, Fats & Oils, and Cotton Systems reports.
EIA will release the weekly ethanol production and stocks reports on Wednesday.
Tuesday and Wednesday are also the November FOMC meeting.
A bunch of export data will be released on Thursday via the weekly Export Sales report and monthly Census release.
Finally on Friday, November live cattle serial options will expire.
That’s all, thank you.
We wish you a good day and a good start to the week.
Author: Sandro F. Puglisi
