By Kirk Maltais
-- Corn for December delivery fell 1.1% to $4.70 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade on Thursday, with potential supply problems stemming from volatile geopolitics not expected to drastically tighten the overall supply/demand picture.
-- Wheat for December delivery rose 0.7% to $5.65 1/2 a bushel.
-- Soybeans for January delivery rose 1% to $13.28 1/4 a bushel.
HIGHLIGHTS
Lacking Support: CBOT corn fell, with concerns surrounding potential supply-chain interruptions failing to stick as support for prices.
"The biggest problem for the corn market is still that with a 2.0+ billion bushel carryout, it is hard to get excited about buying and owning corn," said Tomm Pfitzenmaier of Summit Commodity Brokerage in a note.
Weather in Brazil may limit export competition coming from there, and wars in Ukraine and the Middle East could also impact regional grain supply chains. But traders aren't interested in pricing in much risk premium for those.
Pulling Even: The U.S. now has competitive pricing for grains that are sold on the export market.
Soybeans and wheat have lagged behind their competition this year, hurting their demand versus cheaper alternatives.
However, the U.S. is now competitive for export offers amid both a weaker dollar and grains in general coming off of steep selling, which in turn is allowing soybeans and wheat prices room to travel higher.
INSIGHT
Reduced Strength: Export sales of U.S. grains reported by the USDA this week tumbled from recent strength.
In its weekly export sales report Thursday, the USDA said that for the week ended Oct. 26, sales of wheat totaled 275,600 metric tons, corn sales totaled 760,800 tons, and soybean sales totaled 1.01 million tons. These results cover both the 2023-24 and 2024-25 marketing years.
For wheat, sales fell below the estimates of analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal, while corn and soybeans fell on the low end of analyst expectations.
Stemming the Tide: In the ongoing noise surrounding the 2023 Farm Bill, expensive costs for fertilizer is one thing that U.S. farmers are placing a lot of their emphasis on.
To that end, the Iowa Corn Growers Association is calling for the USDA to assess the pricing practices used by fertilizer companies in an effort to ease the squeeze of input costs on a farmer's income.
"Over recent years, input costs for farmers have gone up again and again," said Jolene Riessen, a farmer from Ida Grove and head of the ICGA.
AHEAD
-- The CFTC is scheduled to release its weekly Commitments of Traders Report at 3:30 p.m. EDT Friday.
-- The USDA is due to release its weekly grains export inspections report at 11 a.m. EDT Monday.
-- The USDA is scheduled to release its weekly crop progress report at 4 p.m. EDT Monday.
Write to Kirk Maltais at kirk.maltais@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
11-02-23 1555ET
