Soybeans were lower on fund and technical selling. Parts of the region will see near-term harvest delays, but conditions generally look drier after that. Beans are also monitoring planting in Brazil ahead of CONAB’s update Thursday. The USDA’s next look at supply, demand, and production is out November 10th. China bought 470,000 tons of U.S. soybeans ahead of the open. That was the first announced sale of U.S. soybeans in a couple of weeks. Given that beans were up ahead of the open, there was probably some buy the rumor, sell the fact activity at play as well. China’s General Administration of Customs says September soybean imports were 11.88 million tons, down 7.7% on the year. ANEC estimates Brazil’s October soybean exports at 6.55 million tons, compared to the previous guess of 6.18 million. Soybean meal futures were mostly firm on demand expectations, while bean oil was down on technical selling and the decline in beans.
Corn was lower on fund and technical selling. Corn is monitoring harvest progress, with a few near-term delays probable ahead of more favorable conditions. Parts of the Corn Belt will need to dry out however and there are ongoing quality concerns in some key growing areas. Demand is solid, but Argentina currently has an edge on export prices. ANEC projects October corn exports for Brazil at 6.41 million tons, compared to 5.34 million a week ago. The USDA’s weekly export sales numbers are out Friday, pushed back by Monday’s federal holiday. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s weekly ethanol numbers are out Thursday, also delayed by the holiday.
The wheat complex was mixed. Export demand is slow because of relatively high U.S. prices. That’s largely kept U.S. wheat from filling part of the vacuum left by the steep decline in exports via the Black Sea by both Russia and Ukraine due to war. That’s also expected to have at least some impact in planted area in both of those nations. Stateside, winter wheat planting and emergence are behind most recent years but could speed up after storms move out. A turn to cooler temperatures, even freezing conditions, in some areas late this week into the weekend could cause some damage to that newly emerged wheat. Crop conditions in Australia are reportedly mostly favorable.
