Markets Fairly Quiet Thursday

Corn closed Thursday steady to down a fraction in a fairly quiet session. Export sales beat the highest trade guess but still not great at 669,231 MT. That is about the pace we need to meet the USDA projection for the year but not enough to get the market's attention. Maybe export sales will pick up because I saw that the price of corn for export in Argentina was $163 a ton and the United States export price is $165 a ton. The Rosario Grain Exchange in Argentina raised its corn production estimate to 23.8 MMT. In the January USDA report their estimate was 25.6 MMT.

Beans closed Thursday with gains of about 2 cents. The expiring January contract lost 3 cents after closing higher for seven days in a row. A contract that is expiring moving higher before it goes off the board tells me there is not a lot of grain, in this case beans that can be delivered. It could be that the crop was overestimated or just that farmers do not want to sell. Export sales came in the high end of trade guess at 1.3 MMT. One negative for both corn and beans is the stock market in China and the United States. They have seen some big swings up and down.