US grain futures finished the session lower. Corn appeared to be the anchor with wheat still suffering technical losses. Corn found support from good weekly export sales of 1.25mt but news that the USDA are expecting to see an increase in US ending stocks this year soon pushed the bulls to the side.
With the USDA predicting a 393mt US corn crop the market had to take a step back, that’s a lot of corn to chew on and with this year’s US export pace already less than desired the extra production and higher ending stocks from the 2019-20 crop may start to hurt the feed complex big time. This may roll through to lower feed wheat, sorghum and maize values around the world but a lot of that will depend on regional demand.
China have said they think that corn and wheat production may be a little lower this year thanks to an army worm problem. If China do come to the plate for corn and sorghum it may go a long way to helping to stabilise the US market, maybe not a huge rally but stability is better than the alternative. Other alternatives may be an increase in the US biofuel percentages.
Wheat futures at Chicago struggled again with technical selling the main downward driver. Lower than expected weekly sales out of the US didn’t help any either. At 405kt the size of the sales isn’t terrible but it was below the lowest of the trade estimated range thus considered bearish.
Apparently the rains hasn’t hurt the French crop much, AgriMer estimated the Good / Excellent rating at 65%, the same as last week.