IARN — The weekly US Export Sales Report was released a day early since federal government agencies are closed on Christmas Eve.
Allendale commodities broker Greg McBride tells the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network that corn and soybean exports were soft on this week’s report, with corn sales hitting a marketing-year low.
“Light sales were reported by USDA with 651,000 metric tons of corn,” McBride said. “That was at the lower end of the estimated range. A neutral aspect there. Beans were bearish at 517,000 tons. That is well below the estimated range, but a good portion of those sales were new crop. When it comes to looking at the old crop and staying in line with USDA’s goals, we fell well short of what we needed to do this week.”
“Soybean oil was bullish,” he said. “That was a nice surprise. We’ve seen palm oil prices go to new highs and then bean oil continues to follow that. Bean oil was at 20.9 (mt) this week and that was well above the estimated range. Another surprise this week was the strength in the cotton sales, not that our Iowa listeners would be paying any attention to that, but that is something that goes to show the trade deal with China is working. They were the number one buyer again this week with some very strong export sales.”
The next US Export Sales Report will be released on Thursday, December 31st.
Story courtesy of the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
