Export Sales Show Brisk Pace for Week
Strong showing could also indicate buyers are starting to become nervous about the fate of the crop in Argentina.
Bryce Knorr
Published: Jan 23, 2009
After languishing in the doldrums for much of the fall and winter, sales of U.S. corn finally took off in the latest week, according to this morning's export report from USDA. In fact, sales were much better than expected across the board, according to the new data.
While one week's worth of sales don't make a trend, corn sales reached 43.8 million bushels in the latest week, a marketing year high. Asian buyers were especially active, in part because U.S. corn was priced below the cost of origination from South America.
The strong showing could also indicate buyers are starting to become nervous about the fate of the crop in Argentina, which has been punished by drought this year.
Soybean sales also were strong at 48.8 million bushels. While that's nothing new, the breakouts show buyers other than China coming to the table. Chinese sales accounted for 58% of the net new business, continuing a trend of somewhat weaker influence after dominating the trade earlier in the marketing year.
Wheat sales also rebounded to 15.2 million bushels, after several lackluster weeks. The one trouble spot in the complex remains soft red winter wheat, where sales were small after two week's in a row of net cancellations. Soft wheat remains the most competitive class on world markets.
However, news leased by USDA after the report this morning could dampen enthusiasm for wheat. The agency, under its daily reporting system, said exporters cancelled the sale of 13 million bushels of hard red winter wheat to Nigeria. At the same time, USDA reported the sale of another 4 million bushels of corn to Japan and 5.7 million bushels of soybeans to China.
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Tagged: wheat, usda, winter wheat, soybeans, soybean
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