Glacier FarmMedia — Look for trading of soybeans, corn and wheat at the Chicago Board of Trade remain sideways for the balance of January, perhaps longer, said Ryan Ettner, broker with Allendale Inc. in McHenry, Ill.
Ettner said there were some surprises in the monthly supply and demand report from the United States Department of Agriculture released on Jan. 12. The moves in the three commodities have largely settled down.
“On the corn side, they raised harvested acres by 1.3 million,” Ettner said on Jan. 14. “There weren’t too many people talking about harvested (corn) acreage ahead of the report.”
Read Also
U.S. grains: Corn, soybeans recover from 3-month low on technical bounce
Chicago | Reuters – Chicago corn and soybean futures steadied on a technical bounce on Wednesday after sliding to their…
The USDA’s World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates increased its call on harvested corn acres for 2025/26 to 91.3 million and nudged up the national yield by 0.5 of a bushel per acre to 186.5.
For soybeans, Ettner said it was a little bit of a surprise that the USDA cut exports by 16 million bushels at nearly 1.58 billion.
“The 16 million was larger than expected,” he said.
The changes to wheat weren’t much of a surprise either, Ettner added, noting that the market “presold” those ideas well before the WASDE was released and the reaction was toned down.
Ettner said that with the new carryouts for soybeans, corn and wheat, their prices have adjusted close to their fair values.
“There’s really not much of a need to move up or down based on carryouts,” he said, noting that some short-term movement could come from notable changes to exports or on fresh news that’s significant.
“The next sizeable report for a move will be the March 31 acreage report,” he added.
As for U.S. soybean export sales to China, Ettner said he’s confident that the latter will meet the 12 million tonnes of purchases by the end of February.
“Most of the commentary make it sound like it won’t happen or reasons why we think it won’t happen,” Ettner said. “I haven’t seen a buying pace slow enough to doubt it. Now with the lower price (for soybeans) we may even see them pick up the pace.”
Reports indicated China is believed to have bought about 10 million tonnes of U.S. soybeans over the last two and a half months. That leaves China with six weeks to acquire the remainder.
