Market News

Soybeans, corn, and wheat down Friday as USDA adjusts yields, stocks, and global outlooks

Soybeans were sharply lower on fund and technical selling, while still closing higher for the week. The USDA did lower U.S. yield and production slightly, while cutting ending stocks to 290 million bushels, but CONAB expects Brazil’s crop to be larger than last year, which was an all-time high. Unsurprisingly, there were no major adjustments to the balance sheets, except for a 50-million-bushel reduction in exports and a lower beginning stocks estimate. Globally, the USDA did ramp up exports for Argentina and Brazil a little bit and left imports by China unchanged. CONAB did increase their expectations for Brazil’s export and domestic demand. During the delay in daily export sales reporting because of the shutdown, China bought a routine amount of U.S. beans, outright, with unknown destinations, Egypt, and Mexico also making purchases above 100,000 tons. The Philippines purchased soybean meal. NOPA member crush numbers for October are out Monday, with the average guess at a record 209.522 million bushels. Soybean meal and oil futures were down on the bearish tone in the soy complex. Soybean oil ending stocks were modestly lower than the prior report and there were no adjustments to soybean meal stocks.

Corn was lower on fund and technical selling but still pulled off a modest week-to-week gain. While the USDA’s production and yield numbers were down from September, the cuts were smaller than expected. The U.S. will likely produce a record amount of corn in 2025, with the yield projection also at an all-time high, as it would take an almost unrealistically large reduction in the preliminary final numbers in January to pull corn below record levels. The USDA’s 2025/26 U.S. corn ending stocks guess was up, continuing to hold well above 2 billion bushels. The USDA did raise 2024/25 U.S. ending stocks as well after an upward revision to 2024 production and a decrease for feed and residual use, which offset a slight bump in ethanol use. Globally, the USDA made no changes to South American production or exports, while lowering exports for Ukraine and imports by China just a bit. CONAB’s first crop corn guess for Brazil was above October, but below a year ago. The big test will be the second crop, the largest of Brazil’s three crops. CONAB also raised domestic and export use expectations. The USDA’s next round of supply and demand estimates is out December 9^th, with CONAB’s updated outlook for Brazil set for the 11^th. The delayed export sales announcements showed solid demand by Mexico and good sales to unknown destinations, with Japana and South Korea also buying U.S. corn during that dead period.

The wheat complex was lower on fund and technical selling, with the complex ending the week mixed, down modestly in Chicago and Kansas City, and up modestly in Minneapolis. U.S. and world wheat ending stocks were both up from September. Domestically, the only change was to production, linked to the September Small Grains Summary. Globally, production was higher on increased expectations for Argentina, Australia, Canada, the European Union, and Russia, all major exporters, in addition to Kazakhstan. The USDA also increased export expectations for Argentina, Australia, and the European Union, while lowering the outlook a little for Russia. France’s AgriMer says 89% of the soft wheat crop is planted, ahead of average. The delayed export data had no large U.S. wheat sales to China, contradicting some trade rumors. The sole sale topping 100,000 tons was 110,000 tons of white wheat to Bangladesh.