Headlines:

  • Ags dance to Washington, China, Harvey tunes
    Washington, China and Tropical Storm Harvey stole limelight in ag markets on Wednesday, turning the spotlight away, for now, from Midwest weather and a high-profile crop tour. As to whether the trio of influences was positive or negative for prices, well, New York-traded cotton at least found support from fears of Harvey, which will in fact masquerade as a hurricane when it hits the Texas coast later this week. “Hurricane conditions are possible along the Texas coast,” official US meteorologists said, warning that Harvey was “likely to bring multiple hazards to portions of the Texas coast beginning on Friday”.
  • ‘Steeper sugar price fall’ needed to curb upbeat Brazil output ideas
    It will take “much steeper fall” in sugar prices to make a big dent in in Brazil’s unexpectedly strong production of the sweetener, Green Pool said, as it lifted again its forecast for the world surplus. The Australia-based analysis group raised by 1.59m tonnes to 7.14m tonnes its forecast for the global sugar output surplus in 2017-18, a figure which would be the largest in five years. The revision – which follows a hike on Friday by the International Sugar Organization to its forecast for the surplus – reflected in the main an upgrade of 2.71m tonnes, to a record 191.14m tones in the estimate for production. That represents a jump of 12.4m tonnes year on year, with Green Pool stressing the incentive to producers from “the higher prices over the past 12-18 months, combined with good seasonal weather conditions” in most cane and beet-growing areas. “High prices have strongly boosted production for 2017-18, and the market is moving from a second year of small deficit, in 2016-17, into a larger surplus than previously estimated.”

 

Summary:

The Corn traded lower ranging down about 4-4.25 cents. The prospect of large crops continues to weigh heavily on prices. Yield reports from the Crop Tour is showing support for the USDA forecasts which has led to the September, December and March contacts broking through their contract lows. Soybean and Wheat futures were essentially flat on the day with both finishing the day marginally profitable. After recent sanctions were announce against China for doing business with North Korea, China issued Soybean cancellations for the current marketing year which stifled the gains on the day. The USDA announced that China canceled their purchase of 640,970 metric tons of US Soybeans and announced the sale of 295,220 metric tons of Soybeans sold to an unknown destination (11,220 metric tons were slated for 2016-17 and 284,000 metric tons for 2017-18). The Wheat market rebounded some and is sitting at what may turn out to be a key price and time line were a small bounce may be in order for the next week or so.