Written Commentary
Ag Market View for September 18.24
September 18, 2024
CORN
Prices are $.01-$.02 ½ lower today with spreads setting back a bit. Inside trading session for Dec-24. Near term resistance at the Sept-24 high at $4.16, with support at the 50 day MA at $4.04 ¼. Very little rain expected this week for the central and ECB along with the southern plains with much above normal temperatures pushing crops towards maturity. Persistent rains over the NW third of the corn and soybean belt could generate healthy totals over the next 7 days. Export inspections at 21 mil. bu. were at the low end of expectations and well below the 45 mil. bu. needed per week to reach the USDA forecast of 2.30 bil. bu. YTD inspections at 39 mil. are down 24% from YA vs. the USDA forecast of up less than 1%. Mexico was the largest taker at 13 mil. bu. Last week money managers bought just over 44k contracts of corn reducing their short position to 132k, the smallest in 4 months. Since establishing a record short position at nearly 354k contracts 2 months ago they have been net buyers 7 of the past 9 weeks cutting their short position by nearly 222k. AgRural reports 1st crop plantings in Brazil have reached 19%.
SOYBEANS
The soybean complex was mixed today in choppy 2 sided trade with beans closing down $.01-$.02, meal was $1-$2 higher while oil was up 10-20. Nov-24 beans have near term support at LW’s low at $9.95 ¾ with resistance at its 50 day MA at $10.17 ¾. After making a new 4 week low, Oct-24 oil recovered to close just below $.40 lb. Inside day for Oct-24 meal with support at $313.30. Spot board crush margins rebounded $.08 today to $1.37 with bean oil PV holding at 38.3%. NOPA crush in Aug-24 at only 158 mil. bu. was well below the average trade guess of 171.3 mil. and below the range of est. of 162-178 mil. This compares to 182.9 mil. in July and 161.45 mil. bu. in Aug-23. NOPA results would suggest census crush at 167 mil. bu. coming up roughly 8 mil. shy of the revised USDA forecast of 2.295 bil. bu. for the 23/24 MY. Bean oil stocks fell to 1.138 bil. lbs. down from 1.499 bil. in July and also well below expectations and the range of est. at 1.245 – 1.444 bil. Several chances for rain in Southern Brazil over the next 7-10 days. These rains are expected to gradually push north into Sao Paulo and Southern MGDS. Mato Grosso is expected to remain hot/dry for another few weeks with better rain prospects in late Sept. and early Oct. The USDA announced the sale of 132k mt (4.8 mil. bu.) of soybeans to an unknown buyer. Export inspections at 15 mil. bu. were at the low end of expectations and well below the 33.5 mil. bu. needed per week to reach the USDA forecast of 1.850 bil. bu. YTD inspections at 25 mil. are down 16% from YA vs. the USDA forecast of up 9%. There were no shipments to China. Last week MM’s bought 23.5k contracts of beans reducing their short position to 131k and bought 14k meal extending their long position to 37k. Stats Canada cut their canola production est. 2.7% from August to 18.98 mmt, now below YA production of 19.2 mmt.
WHEAT
Prices were $.14-$.19 lower across all 3 classes today, giving back all of Friday’s rally, plus a few more cents. Tensions in the Black Sea region seemed to have eased a touch after Russia’s stark warning last week threatening the use of nuclear weapons if Ukraine were to launch western made missiles deep into Russia. Export inspections at 20 mil. bu. were in line with expectations and above the 15 mil. bu. needed per week to reach the USDA forecast. YTD inspections at 255 mil. are up 34% from YA, vs. the USDA forecast of up 17%. Last week MM’s were net buyers of 13k contracts of Chicago wheat, nearly 9k in KC and just over 3k in MGEX. Their combined net short position across all 3 classes at just under 70k contracts is the lowest in 3 months. SovEcon reports Russia exported 990k mt of grain last week, down from 1.06 mmt the previous week. Nearly all of the grain shipped was wheat at 980k mt, vs. 1.03 mmt the previous week. IKAR reports the export price for Russian wheat at the end of last week was $216/mt up $1 from the previous week. Stats Canada lowered their all wheat production forecast slightly to 34.373 mmt vs. 32.946 mmt from YA.
Charts provided by USDA Charts.
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