Grain Outlook No holiday lull for corn market

The following marketing analysis is for the week ending June 2.

CORN — Despite being a holiday-shortened week, there was enough action in the markets to satisfy everyone! These markets are not for the faint of heart. Corn and soybeans got off to a soft start after Memorial Day weekend, keeping with the tendency for lower closes the day after the holiday. The weather looked nonthreatening, demand was nonexistent, and concern over the debt ceiling issue kept buyers on the sidelines. The weekly crop progress report showed corn planting at 92 percent complete and 8 percent ahead of the fiveyear average. Corn emergence at 72 percent was well above the average guess of 52 and 63 percent on average. The first corn condition report of the year showed 69 percent of the crop was in good/excellent condition compared to last year’s 73 percent on its first report as of June 6. This was the lowest initial rating in the last four years. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as of May 30, 34 percent of the U.S. corn areas are in drought. This was an increase of 8 percent week-on-week.

And in the Black Sea, the United Nations has proposed Ukraine, Russia and Turkey begin to work toward the transit of Russian ammonia through the Ukrainian port of Pivdennyi. Ukraine would like to have more ports and commodities added to the grain agreement. According to reports, shipments of grain out of the approved ports in the grain deal have virtually been shut down due to Russia’s failure to register vessels for inspections. Russia continues to threaten to end the grain deal when it expires on July 18 if their needs aren’t met.

This week’s export sales report was within expectations at 7.3 million bushels for old crop and 12.3 million bushels for new crop. Old sales commitments now total 1.5 billion bushels and continue to run 36 percent behind last year. The USDA is predicting year-on-year exports to be down 28 percent this year. Mexico was the leading buyer of old crop this week with China seeing some switching of sales, but nothing new. We need to average 14.2 million bushels of sales per week to hit the USDA’s 1.775 billion bushel outlook. New crop sales commitments are 120.7 million bushels and are nearly half of last year’s 224 million bushels by this date. There were no daily