By: Kelley Fornoff –
Grains are lower across the board after an overnight session that lacked any real news and what has so far been a typical slow holiday week. At the break, March corn is 1’2 lower at 346’0, March soybeans are 7’4 lower at 1009’4, and March Chicago wheat is 0’2 lower at 399’2.
A bird flu scare across Asia is causing soybean traders to be more cautious this week. However, China reported a 6 percent increase in soybean imports from last November and demand so far remains steady.
Another daily export sale was announced with Mexico purchasing 100,400 MT of US corn for delivery in the current marketing year.
Weekly export sales came in better than expected for corn and soybeans but slightly below expectations for wheat. Estimates for corn ranged from 800,000-1.1 MMT and net sales were reported at 1.251 MMT. Net sales for soybeans were strong last week, totaling 1.813 MMT where estimates ranged from 1.1-1.4 MMT. Wheat sales were on the lower end of the range of estimates between 300-500,000 MT, with 297,800 MT of sales last week. The market has so far failed to react to the strong corn and soybean sales.
The Dollar is higher on positive economic news this morning. The US 3rd Quarter GDP report showed the US economy expanded more than what was reported in Q2. GDP grew 3.5 percent from July-September which is higher than the average estimate of 3.2 percent.
A reminder that January options expire tomorrow which is also an early close day for the CBOT which will close at 12:05pm and will reopen Monday night at 7pm for Tuesday’s trade.