By Kirk Maltais
--Wheat for May delivery fell 1.5%, to $6.87 1/2 a bushel, on the Chicago Board of Trade on Wednesday, with the contract finding its lowest close since September 2021 as today's WASDE report failed to spark an expected rebound.
--Corn for May delivery fell 1.4% to $6.25 1/2 a bushel.
--Soybeans for May delivery rose 0.2% to $15.17 3/4 a bushel.
HIGHLIGHTS
Low Level: Today's WASDE report showed wheat ending stocks unchanged at 568 million bushels, with world stocks down roughly 2 million metric tons to 267.2 million tons. These changes ran counter to the expectation of traders, but didn't inspire traders to bid wheat back up despite trading at its lowest levels since September 2021. "Incessant weakness in wheat is linked to ideas that the global and world exporter situation will loosen up, along with [a] large jump in prospective U.S. acreage this year and modest improvement in Plains drought," Joel Karlin of Ocean State Research told the WSJ.
'Sluggish' Behavior: Corn futures posted a big drop following the WASDE report, with traders seeing little reason to buck the trend and buy, Virginia McGathey of McGathey Commodities told the WSJ. "Sluggish demand is really hurting the market," she tells the WSJ. "Traders have no reason to step in - even biofuel demand is down. Until that turns around corn may just trade sideways." Corn prices fell to their lowest since August 2022.
Lost Steam: Even with a positive WASDE, soybean futures have lost steam - shedding value after being up 0.6% pre-report. Helping fuel the earlier positive sentiment was the cut to Argentina's soybean output, and an increase in U.S. soybean exports. While the USDA did reduce its outlook for soybeans crush, the net result still reduced ending stocks for soybeans. "Stock/usage is now 4.8%, which is very tight and the reason why 'beans are in the teens,' said Craig Turner of StoneX in a note.
INSIGHT
Switching Focus: Following the release of the WASDE this afternoon, traders said they're turning their attention to another set of USDA data. "Look for traders to shift focus on U.S. March planting intentions and March 1 grain stocks," said Terry Reilly of Futures International in a note. Although the report contained some features that exceeded the expectations of traders, overall the forecasts did little to excite traders that are starving for fresh news.
Rising Inventories: Inventories of ethanol in the U.S. are climbing, the EIA said in its latest weekly report. The EIA said U.S. ethanol inventories landed at 25.32 million barrels, which is up from 24.78 million barrels the previous week. The figure went against the expectations of many analysts surveyed by Dow Jones this week, who were looking for inventories to fall back to as low as 24 million barrels. Daily production rose, however - climbing to 1.01 million barrels a day versus 1.003 million barrels a day as of last week. The figure landed on the low-end of analyst forecasts.
AHEAD
--The USDA will release its weekly export sales report at 8:30 a.m. ET Thursday.
--The USDA will release its weekly grains export inspections report at 11 a.m. ET Monday.
--The USDA will release its annual North American Grain and Oilseed Crushings report at 3 p.m. ET Monday.
Write to Kirk Maltais at kirk.maltais@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
03-08-23 1540ET
