FW: FI Evening Grain Comments 01/09/20

PDF attached

 

USDA
Weekly Export Sales Report Delayed

WASHINGTON,
Jan. 8, 2019 ― The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Export Sales Report for the week ending Jan. 2 will be published at 8:30 a.m. EST on Friday, Jan. 10, instead of Thursday, Jan. 9, due to the weather-related closure of Washington, D.C.-area federal offices
on afternoon of Jan. 7.

 

 

Weather

 

MARKET
WEATHER MENTALITY FOR CORN AND SOYBEANS: 

Weather
conditions in many Brazil and Argentina crop areas will be favorable over the next two weeks, although a close watch on the rain distribution is warranted. A few pockets could be a little too dry. Rio Grande do Sul will get some relief from dryness over the
coming week with northern soybeans benefiting more than southern corn or rice production areas. Paraguay will receive additional rain periodically over the coming week to further improve soil and crop conditions. The same is expected over all neighboring areas.

Parts
of Argentina’s north need timely rainfall and will get some over the coming week to ten days.

            South
Africa summer crop conditions should be largely beneficial over the next couple of weeks. Australia weather will continue hot and too dry for crop changes, although it would not be surprising to see some rain in eastern parts of the nation later this month.

            India’s
winter crops are in very good condition and should remain that way for the next two weeks. Summer crop harvesting in the south will continue around brief periods of rain.

            China
rapeseed conditions will have potential for improvement in the spring after this week’s storm system brought significant moisture to the production region. A follow up storm system will see to it the region is plenty moist in the spring.

            Southern
Europe and the southwestern parts of the CIS will be dry biased for a while, but winter crops are dormant or semi-dormant and will not be bothered. A boost in precipitation will be needed in the late winter prior to the start of spring growth.

            Overall,
weather today will likely provide a mixed influence on market mentality with a slight bearish bias prevailing.

 

MARKET
WEATHER MENTALITY FOR WHEAT: 

Winter
crop conditions around the world are either in fair to good condition or poised for improvement. Recent moisture in the United States will be good for spring crop development. Snow is accumulating in the northwestern U.S. Plains before bitter cold conditions
evolve in the next week to ten days to prevent winterkill.

Portions
of Ukraine, southern Russia and Kazakhstan are still snow free and some winter crops are not well established due to dryness and change is needed by spring to improve crops. 

            There
is no risk of crop threatening cold in Russia, Europe or most of China’s key winter crop production areas for the coming week to ten days. Winter crops are not as well established as they should be in some areas of southeastern Europe locations or in parts
of China, but recent rain and snow in eastern China will see to it that big improvements occur prior to the start of aggressive crop development in the spring.

India’s
winter crops are poised to perform quite well this year and rain in Pakistan Sunday into Monday will improve the outlook there as well.

            Dryness
in northern Africa will be closely monitored with Morocco the only area at risk of lower production today but drying in northwestern Algeria will continue for a while.

            Overall,
weather today will likely produce a mixed influence on market mentality.

Source:
World Weather Inc. and FI

 

US
CPC:
no active El Nino or La Nina

 

 

 

Bloomberg
Ag Calendar

THURSDAY,
JAN. 9:

• Port
  of Rouen data on French grain exports
• United
  Nation’s FAO Food Price Index
• Australia’s
  Bureau of Meteorology releases climate statement
• New
  Zealand commodity price

FRIDAY,
JAN. 10:

• USDA
  weekly crop net-export sales for corn, soybeans, wheat, 8:30am
• USDA’s
  monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand (WASDE) report, noon
• Malaysia
  end-2019 palm oil stocks, production, export numbers; Jan. 1-10 palm oil export data from AmSpec, Intertek and SGS
• U.S.
  winter wheat seeding forecast
• USDA
  quarterly wheat, barley, corn, soybean stocks, noon
• ICE
  Futures Europe weekly commitments of traders report on coffee, cocoa, sugar positions ~1:30pm (~6:30pm London)
• CFTC
  commitments of traders weekly report on positions for various U.S. futures and options, 3:30pm

Source:
Bloomberg and FI

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reuters
Estimates

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Reuters and FI

 

 

 

Bloomberg
Bull/Bear survey

・        
Soybeans: Bullish: 10 Bearish: 9 Neutral: 5

・        
Corn: Bullish: 9 Bearish: 4 Neutral: 11

・        
Wheat: Bullish: 6 Bearish: 10 Neutral: 8

・        
Raw sugar: Bullish: 2 Bearish: 1 Neutral: 4

・        
White sugar: Bullish: 4 Bearish: 0 Neutral: 3

・        
White-sugar premium: Bullish: 5 Bearish: 0 Neutral: 2

 

 

Macros.

・        
China Says Liu He to Travel to U.S. for Trade Deal Signing 
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-09/china-says-liu-to-visit-washington-from-jan-13-for-deal-signing

・        
US Initial Jobless Claims Jan 4: 214K (est 220K ; prevR 223K ; prev 222K)

・        
US Continuing Claims Jan 9: 1.803M (est 1.72M ; prev 1.728M)

 

Corn.

・        
Corn futures traded two-sided, ending 0.50-1.25 cents on positioning. 

・        
Funds were net sellers of an estimated 6,000 corn contracts.  

・        
March corn traded above its 50-day moving average and touched its 100-day moving average but ended below both levels.    

・        
Gold was down about $8.60 as of 1:27 pm CT and Dow futures up 136 points. 

・        
USD was 13 points higher as of 1:27 pm CT and WTI slightly higher. 

・        
Baltic Dry Index fell 0.1 percent or 1 point to 772. Lowest since April 2017 and down 21 consecutive sessions. 

・        
Agroconsult sees the 2019-20 Brazil corn area up 2 percent to 17.8 million hectares, and production at 101.6 million tons, down 1.3 percent from previous year. 

・        
Poland reported 55 outbreaks of African swine fever in wild boar near the German border last month. Germany has been building fences to prevent a spread of the disease.  A discovery of ASF in Germany would
be a huge blow for the country as they are large exporters of pork.

・        
Traders will be watching the phase one trade signing in Washington next week. 

・        
Crumbling Corn Adding to Woes for American Grain Exporters
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-08/crumbling-pale-corn-adds-to-woes-for-american-grain-exporters

・        
INTL FCStone estimated summer-corn output in Rio Grande do Sul at 4.8 million tons, down from 6 million tons last month. EMATER/RS full season corn is 5.95 million tons.  RGSD really has only one season for
corn due to its climate.

・        
USDA is set to release their annual crop production report on Friday.  U.S. corn production seen 159m bu lower, yields seen a point lower at 166 bu/acre. Dec. 1 corn stocks seen at 11.47b bu, 465m less than
in Dec. 2018.

・        
EIA: Natural gas prices in 2019 were the lowest in the past three years
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42455&src=email

・        
FAS USDA Attaché: Brazil March-February corn exports could decline to 34 million tons from their forecast of 37 million year earlier. 
https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=Grain%20and%20Feed%20Update_Brasilia_Brazil_09-27-2019

 

 

Export
Developments

• South
  Korea’s NOFI bought 69,000 tons of optional origin corn at $211.95/ton c&f for arrival around April 15. 
  
• South
  Korea’s FLC bought 66,000 tons of US corn at $207.49/ton c&f for shipment between Jan. 25 and Feb. 25 from the U.S. Pacific Northwest coast. 
  
• Yesterday
  South Korea’s KOCOPIA bought 60,000 tons of corn at $218.28/ton c&f for arrival in March. 
  
• Revised:
  India’s MMTC delayed their import tender for 175,000 tons (50k previously) of non-GMO corn from Jan 7 to January
  14,
  valid until January 22, for shipment by February 10. Another source put shipment by Jan 22. 
  

 

Soybean
complex.

・        
Soybeans traded
higher overnight but fell during the day session on profit taking.  March soybeans ended 3.75 cents lower.  Traders are looking for USDA to cut US and global ending stocks for the three main CBOT agriculture commodities. Soybean oil held in there to close
7-11 points higher.  Soybean meal declined $0.70-$1.00/short ton lower on fund selling. 

・        
Funds sold an estimated net 5,000 soybeans, sold 3,000 soybean meal and bought 1,000 soybean oil. 

・        
There is talk China bought at least 10 cargos of Brazilian soybeans this week. 

・        
USDA is set to release their annual crop production report on Friday.  US Soybean ending stocks seen down 44m bu to 431m. Soybean production seen down 37m bu, yield seen at 46.5 bu/acre vs 46.9. Dec. 1 soybean
stocks seen at 3.19b bu, 555m less than in Dec. 2018.

・        
Indonesia plans to start B40 road tests in April.  The current mandate is B30. 

・        
MPOB is due out with updated S&D data on Friday (late Thursday evening for US observers). 

・        
Malaysian palm markets
were higher on expectations India will import a large amount of crude palm oil.  We think Indonesia will benefit from this. 

・        
Conab will revise its 2018-19 soybean supply and demand.  They are using 77.9 million tons for 2019 soybean exports.  In December they had penciled in 70 million tons for crop-year 2018-19. 

・        
Argentina may see heavy rains in the north of the agricultural area and a subsequent decrease in temperature, according to the BA Grains Exchange. 

 

Oilseeds
Export Developments

• None
  reported

 

Argentina
spot sunflower oil fob

Source:
Bloomberg

 

Wheat

・        
US wheat futures traded
higher with Chicago back near a 6-month high.  Chicago March wheat traded through a
$5.5600
and $5.5900 resistance level.  Traders
are looking for about a 100 year low in US winter wheat seedings, US ending stocks to decline, and world ending stocks to tick down about 2 million tons. 
U.S.
2020 winter wheat planting are seen at 30.64m acres vs 31.16m in 2019.

・        
Chicago March resistance is now seen at $5.6875.

・        
While March Chicago rallied 9.50 cents, March KC ended 10.25 cents higher and MN 4.0 cents higher.

・        
Funds bought an estimated net 6,000 Chicago wheat. 

・        
It’s going to get cols across the northern Great Plains this weekend, exposing some uncovered wheat. 

・        
March Paris wheat futures closed 1.75 euros higher at 191.75.

・        
FAO: World food price index averaged 181.7 in December, highest level since December 2014, up 2.5% from the previous month. For all of 2019 it averaged 171.5, up 1.8% from 2018.  The vegetable index was recorded
at a 2-year high.

・        
Egypt said they have enough wheat reserves to last until the second week of June. 

・        
Russian wheat exports are running 14 percent below the previous season. 

 

Export
Developments.

• Japan
  bought 106,125 tons of wheat on Thursday.  Original details of the tender as follows:

• Morocco
  passed on 354,000 tons of US durum wheat for arrival by May 31.  They received no offers. 
  
• Mauritius
  seeks 95,000 tons of optional origin wheat flour on Jan. 10, 2020, for shipment between July 1, 2020, and June 20, 2021. 
  
• Turkey
  seeks 550,000 tons of red milling wheat on January 14, minimum protein content of 13.5% for January 21-February 15 shipment. 
  
• Jordan
  seeks 120,000 tons of wheat on January 14.
• Turkey
  seeks 100,000 tons of durum wheat on January 14 for Jan 25-Feb 25 shipment.
  
• Japan
  seeks 120,000 tons of feed wheat and 200,000 tons of feed barley on January 15 for arrival by March 19. 
  

・        
Syria seeks 200,000 tons of soft wheat from Russia on January 20, 2020. 

• Results
  are awaited on Ethiopia in for 80,000 tons of durum wheat and another 75,000 tons of soft wheat.
  

 

Rice/Other

• Results
  awaited: South
  Korea bought 30,764 tons of rice for Sep-Oct arrival. 

Details
of the new tender are as follows:

   
TONNES(M/T)  ORIGIN  PRICE ($/T)   ARRIVAL/PORT

       
20,000   U.S.A.  $799.14       Sept.1-Oct.31/Busan

       
10,764   U.S.A.  $789.14       Sept.1-Oct.31/Gwangyang

• Results
  awaited: Syria seeks 45,000 tons of white rice on Jan. 6, 2020.  (Reuters) Short grain white rice of third or fourth class was sought. No specific country of origin was specified in the tender, traders said.  Some 25,000 tons was sought for supply 90 days
  after confirmation of the order and 20,000 tons 180 days after supply of the first consignment.  The rice was sought packed in bags and offers should be submitted in euros.  A previous tender from the agency for 45,000 tons of rice with similar conditions
  had closed on Nov.
  13.