Chicago Board of Trade Market News
Outlook: Weekly corn sales and export shipments were below market expectations. The trade expected 900,000 MT to 1.1 MMT in old crop sales but USDA only identified 803,200 MT. A 260,000 MT sale to Taiwan was a positive for corn and the holiday shortened week gave May corn a 3-cent boost. Still, the U.S. has sold 15 percent less corn this year than during the same period during the last marketing year, which is bound to show up in next week’s stocks report.
The soybean/corn price ratio ($2.38/1.00) has flipped in favor of soybeans but weather over the next six to eight weeks will have greater influence over what actually gets planted. Informa has projected 89.5 million acres will get planted, a 1.5 million-acre increase over last year.
In addition to next week’s USDA Planting Intentions report, the market will be looking at the March quarterly stocks report. At this juncture, the market doesn’t know precisely how much supply has actually been going to feed use.
Deciphering the corn production number out of Argentina requires some deciphering. The Argentine government forecasted this week a 2015/16 corn crop of 37 MMT. That number is substantially higher than the 27 MMT projected by USDA. The reason is because the government is both optimistic, and it includes silage in its estimate. The government thinks the crop will be nearly 12 percent larger than last year. Meanwhile, traders are making big export sales though there is now the expectation of equally large demurrage charges as logistics swamp the current port infrastructure.