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Soybeans down ahead of USDA reports, corn mixed

Soybeans were lower on fund and technical selling. The trade was getting ready for Friday’s USDA planted acreage and quarterly stocks numbers. Ahead of the report, analysts expect soybean acres to 86.86 million acres, with quarterly stocks at 957 million bushels, which would be up on the year. The acreage number will probably be shrugged off quickly due to weather during planting and early development. The reports are out at Noon Eastern/11 Central. The USDA says old soybean export sales fell 49% from the previous week to 10.4 million bushels, mainly to China and the Netherlands, with new crop at 3.7 million bushels and unknown destinations taking the lead. Unknown destinations bought 120,000 tons of new crop U.S. beans ahead of Thursdays open. That could turn out to be China when it’s time for delivery, or it could not. Trade rumors during Thursday’s session claimed China bought beans from Brazil overnight. Soybean meal and oil were mixed, both adjusting spreads. Statistics Canada says farmers planted 4.21 million acres of canola, up 14.8% from 2023, and 5.743 million acres of soybeans, 2% higher. Stats Canada also says Canada’s canola crush during May was up 19.5% on the year. India reportedly bought an unspecified amount of soybean oil from Argentina.

Corn was mixed. Corn was preparing for Friday’s USDA reports, while watching development weather. Storms are likely in some key growing areas into the weekend, including more rain in flooded areas of the northwest Corn Belt. That flooding, along with the other weather issues faced during planting and development, likely means this acreage number will change further, with initial prevent plant numbers released in August. The average guess for planted area is 90.27 million acres, while quarterly stocks are seen at 4.867 billion bushels, compared to 4.103 billion on June 1^st, 2023. Old crop U.S. corn exports sales were modestly higher than the previous week, but below average, primarily to Mexico and Japan, with a cancelation by unknown destinations. New crop sales were 5.5 million bushels, mostly to Mexico. Statistics Canada says farmers planted 3.641 million acres of corn for grain, 4.8% less than last year. There’s talk China will auction 7 to 8 million tons of corn from state reserves next month.

The wheat complex was higher on short covering and technical buying, along with the decline in the dollar during the session. Wheat is oversold, but any sustained upside could be limited by slow export demand. U.S. sales last week were 24.5 million bushels, with unknown destinations and the Philippines taking the top slots. Russia and Ukraine continue to hold a large share of the export market. There’s been more unconfirmed talk of Brazil buying U.S. hard red winter. U.S. winter wheat yields have been mixed, but generally better than expected for hard red winter than soft red winter. Ahead of Friday’s USDA numbers, analysts see planted area for all wheat at 47.58 million acres, with winter wheat at 34.16 million and spring wheat at 11.36 million, while quarterly stocks are expected to be larger than last year at 682 million bushels. Statistics Canada says farmers planted a total of 26.641 million acres of wheat, 1.1% less than last year, including 18.936 million acres of non-durum spring wheat, a decline of 2.8%, and 1.341 million acres of winter wheat, down 5.8%.