Market Report: Corn and Beans Lower Monday

Corn started the week weaker, posting losses of 7-8 cents Monday. Corn closed below the 100-day moving average. Corn export loadings had another good number with 1.143 MMT loaded on ships for export. Year to date export loadings are still 12 percent behind last year. Traders were looking for good planting progress in Monday afternoon's report and they got it. The USDA reported that 64 percent of the corn is planted, which is 14 percent ahead of the five-year average. The USDA also reported two daily corn sales Monday, 120,000 MT of corn was sold to an unknown destination and 170,000 MT was sold to Japan.

Beans closed Monday 5-8 cents lower. The dollar index was higher and that pressured all the grains again. The USDA reported that 23 percent of the beans are planted. The five-year average for this date is 16 percent planted. Export loadings came in at 111,314 MT. Year to date we are 7.4 percent behind last year's pace. During April, China imported 7.07 MMT of beans. That was up 16 percent from March. There was also a rumor that China was going to begin selling some of its old crop bean reserves. I am not sure anyone, including the USDA, knows how many old crop beans China has!