Corn futures fell hard on USDA report news, trading a six per cent day range.

In the wheat pits Chicago settled down -25.25 usc/bu closing at 476.25usc/bu, Kansas was -24.5 usc/bu lower to settle at 409usc/bu, while Minni softened -8.75 usc/bu to go out at 522usc/bu. Corn fell -25 usc/bu to go out at 392.75usc/bu while Beans were down -12.5 usc/bu to settle at 879.25usc/bu WCE Canola softened -1.7 CAD/mt closing at 452.4CAD/mt with Matif Canola finishing lower by -0.75 Eur/mt. In outside markets the Dow Jones fell -389.70 points, Crude was up 2.89 bbl the Aussie was -0.0031 lower to settle at 0.67488, the CAD rallied 0.00178 while the EUR gained 0.00151.

Report wow!

A miss – that’s the summary. The trade’s ideas of the damage caused by the unprecedented wet conditions through the row crop planting window were debunked last night by the USDA. In their August report they clearly showed that the US corn grower was going to plant way more corn than anyone could fathom. So a few important things to note. To calculate the planting intentions you have to add the prevent plant acres = 11.21 million acres (ie the acres that have been claimed on insurance that couldn’t be planted due to it being too wet) + the actual planted acres released by the USDA last night = 90 million acres – this means the grower actually was going to put in 101.2m/acs of corn this year. Wow. That would have been amazing, especially given corn was trading at mid $3/bu when growers would have been ordering seed. The other baffling data point put up in last night’s report was the divergence between the USDA and the Farm Service Agency (FSA). Essentially there are 2 different figures released by 2 different govt agencies. The FSA suggested that there was only 85.87m/ac planted vs USDA at 90m/ac. Yes, they have different methodology behind the numbers – the FSA relies on self-reporting from growers which historically means that the number tends to increase over time – but not to the tune of 4.13m/acs. The USDA number utilises a few different tools such as satellite imagery and grower surveys. The divergence between these numbers raises some questions that will drive market direction – but clearly the USDA release in isolation was nothing short of bearish.

Australia wants rain

Markets still remain subdued here in Australia, wide bid/offer spreads. As we now push through middle of August with the forecast still remaining dry for NSW, we will be keeping a close eye on WA as the next 12-14 days will be crucial. It must be said while SA and VIC have had good early August rainfall, crops will still be needing a drink in September to get home with kind temps.