Headlines:
- The USDA will release Dec 1 Grain Stocks and the final 2016 crop report on January 12th at noon eastern
- 10% of Argentina’s Soybean Crop Is Damaged, Experts Say – Some farmers face total crop losses…
- Conab boosts ideas of record Brazilian soybean crop
Brazil, the world’s top-ranked soybean exporter, is on track to produce a record large crop. Conab, the Brazilian crop agency, unveiled a 1.35m tonne upgrade to its soybean harvest forecast, leaving prospects at a record 103.80m tonnes, up 8.8% year-on-year. The agency lifted its ideas for the crop based on good climate conditions, which will see yields bounce back after a disappointing harvest in the previous season.
- Cargill profits boom on healthy US meat demand
Booming demand for thanksgiving turkey and beef in the US boosted Cargill’s profits, while processing margins for cocoa also improve.
And the agribusiness giant reports rising earnings from grain trading and processing segment, thanks to good global demand for the bumper US corn and soybean crop. The privately-owned company saw adjusted profits rise 80% year-on-year, to $1.03bn, in the three months to November 30, although net profits were sharply down due to the sale of Cargill’s pork and steel businesses a year ago. Cargill reported revenues at $26.9bn, down 1% year-on-year
Summary:
News coming from South America reveals that Argentina has had to deal with the likes of both flooding and fires in different regions of the country over the past few weeks. These revelations suggest that grain prices could move higher (especially Soybean). We have seen an uptick in Beans that lasted more than a day for the 1st time in a couple of weeks. The Wheat growing regions were subject to dryness and fire and the Soybean regions saw some flooding.
As would be expected Corn and Wheat have been a little light in volume ahead of the USDA WASDE report scheduled for January 12th. This report has a history of determining what the trend could be for Corn and Beans. Additionally, we will be watching the Winter Wheat planting projections in this report. Today Corn closed down 2.50 cents and Wheat was off 1.25 cents. Soybean futures settled in positive territory up 7.75 cents.
Today the USDA reported private export activity in the tune of 241,600 metric tons of Corn for delivery to unknown destinations. Additionally, export sales of 130,000 metric tons of Corn for delivery to Taiwan was also reported.
