Last week was a story of global weather and supply worries: will that be enough to keep bulls happy this week?  US harvest is in full swing for row crops, with mixed results still coming in, and in South America, corn and soybeans are looking decidedly better this week with rain coming in.  Wheat finally has had its own story to follow, and there is still no relief in sight for winter wheat areas with both the Black Sea and US Hard Red Winter wheat belts staring down the barrel of another dry week.

Argentina’s wheat harvest is moving along, with Bolsa de Cereales comments last week suggesting that the first yields of harvest were holding under 1 tonne per hectare.  Tough early yields are still worse than some had hoped to see, and there’s been nothing yet over the weekend to suggest surprise improvements.  Rains forecast this week should bring some harvest delays.

Soybean weather maps remain wet across Brazil, with 30 millimetres plus on the forecast for most growing areas later this week and into next.  Dry conditions in Brazil have continued to worry oilseed markets, but current outlooks are positive and easing concerns slightly.

In a decision that has highlighted the current tightness in Brazil’s old-crop markets, its government confirmed a tariff exemption for corn imports until March 2021 and soybeans until January 2021 respectively, when more new-crop hits. This opens the door to more potential US export business.

Black Sea weather maps meanwhile remain very dry, with only light showers on most model runs across the two-week outlooks.

US export sales were out on Friday, with beans at 2.6 million tonnes (Mt) versus ideas of below 2Mt, corn at 655,000t and below expectations, and wheat at 528,000t including a cargo of new-crop Soft Red Winter wheat to Brazil.  Other flashes of news on export sales comprised two sets of unknown soytbean sales totalling around 400,000t, and 128,000t of corn to Mexico.

Source: Lachstock Consulting