11/22/2024 Cattle on Feed Friday, Export Sales

On the Grains
Good Friday morning readers and good luck this weekend to the Wisconsin deer hunters. My positive attitude and halftime speech yesterday morning weren’t enough to get corn to go up and challenge that resistance that I have been mentioning. Yesterday exports for corn came in at 58.8 million bushels (mbu) which was an increase over last week’s 51.8 mbu and about steady with last year’s 56.4 mbu. Here is where it gets interesting, total outstanding sales are 1.236 billion bushels, which is up 39% year-over-year. Currently, the corn export program needs to average 24.1 mbu/wk the balance of the year (BOY) vs last year’s needed pace of 31.9 mbu a very doable number. The take-home point is, will the market see USDA adjust exports higher or we will see sales slowdown? The likely outcome is that both will happen. Mexico has 12.9 MMT on the book’s vs 11.7 MMT last year and while they generally don’t run the risk of cancelling, that is still a possibility. China has yet to purchase any meaningful amount of corn but before we get too worked up about that remember last year, they only had 1 MMT (39 mbu) on the books through mid-November a number that could be offset with increased ethanol production.