CNS Canada — The latest report released from the U.S. Department of Agriculture had no surprises for traders at the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), leaving the March corn and soybean contracts little changed.
“I think that brokers right now are on the phone talking to their customers, probably some co-ops, elevators are also, and they’re giving them the news. We know what we know now and it wasn’t that unexpected,” said Scott Capinegro at Highland Trading.
USDA’s world agricultural supply and demand estimates (WASDE) report, released Thursday, left the Brazilian corn crop estimate unchanged from January at 95 million tonnes. Argentina’s corn crop estimate was lowered from 42 million tonnes to 39 million tonnes.
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“We rallied a penny off of that report, off of the highs. So I mean it was pretty well known that they have to lower that Argentine crop in corn,” Capinegro said, adding he thinks the corn market could hit its monthly high either Thursday or Friday.
The CBOT March corn contract opened Thursday at $3.65 per bushel and closed at $3.6575 (all figures US$).
Traders are still paying attention to the weather in South America, with Argentina forecasting rain and cooler temperatures. The change in weather from hot and dry has Capinegro thinking USDA’s estimates for corn are lower than what the actual crop will be.
For soybeans, USDA raised its Brazilian crop estimate to 112 million tonnes from 110 million. The Argentina soybean crop estimate however was lowered to 54 million tonnes from 56 million, offsetting the increase for Brazil.
“In beans it was a wash. Argentine beans came down two million metric tonnes, Brazil beans went up two million and I’m still hearing Brazil’s crop is still going to even be bigger. So I don’t see anything really friendly for beans at all,” Capinegro said.
At open Thursday the CBOT March soybean contract was at $9.8325 per bushel and at close it was at $9.875.
“(Traders) broke the bean market but now it has rallied back a dime off of that. They took it to unchanged, a little bit lower for the week and now coming back a bit,” Capinegro said.
— Ashley Robinson writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.
