Weekly Market Update 12-14-23

Dec 14, 2023


Here is your weekly market update from the Garden City Co-op Grain Origination Team.

Trivia

  1. In Home Alone,where are the McCallisters going on vacation when they leave Kevin behind?

  2. What is Ralphie's little brother's name in the movie A Christmas Story?

Answers at the bottom.

Market News​

Exports Corn exports have slightly improved with 28.0 million bushels inspected this week. Although this is still towards the lower end of estimates, Mexico has loaded 4.3 million bushels, and China has loaded 18.5 million bushels, which is still about 1% behind the current USDA pace. Soybeans have had 36.2 million bushels inspected. Soybean sales to China are being purchased well through December and into January. However, this is down from the previous week and well below the 10-week average. In the meantime, wheat inspections increased by 3.4 million bushels from the last week, reaching 10.4 million bushels. Continuing in the upward direction, the milo inspected was at 13.4 million bushels.
Export sales were decent but not noteworthy. Both corn and wheat landed on the higher end of trade expectations. Corn’s current week is 55.8 MB, with wheat at 54.8 MB, with 700,000 bushels of wheat new crop sales. While the soy complex fell towards the lower end of estimates reported at 39.8 MB, flash sales this week won’t be noted until this upcoming week. 3.1 million bushels for milo sold & 2.4 million bushels for NC contracts.

South America Argentina’s new libertarian President Javier Milei ran on a platform of drastic economic reform. He took office on Sunday and announced changes in just a few days. Argentina is facing a terrible economic crisis with triple digit inflation and negative net foreign currency reserves. Argentina devalued its currency on Tuesday afternoon from 366 pesos per dollar to 800 pesos per dollar. Argentine farmers sell their grain in dollars and exchange for pesos. Therefore, an Argentine farmer will be receiving more than double the number of pesos as before the devaluation. At the same time, the new administration in Argentina will seek to raise export taxes for corn and wheat from 12% to 15% and keep soybeans unchanged at 33%. The tax increase requires legislation from Congress. Luis Caputo, Economy Minister of Argentina, says they will move to eliminate export taxes after this emergency is over. Other current export taxes are 31% for soybean meal and soybean oil and 12% for sorghum. Soybeans have had a tough market week in light of these changes. In other news, several forecasts are calling for a wetter Brazil in the 6-10 day forecast.

December WASDE Recap: Last Friday the USDA released the December WASDE report, with little effect on the market. Overall, for a report day it was very calm and saw little changes. Corn and wheat saw small carryout decreases settling at 2.131 billion bushels and 659 million bushels, while soybeans had no change month over month. Worldwide stocks saw small changes but nothing earth shattering. South American production saw only 1 change and that was Brazil soybeans dropping 2mmt to 161mmt for production. The USDA kept things subdued this month, but January should be a different story. We will have multiple reports with the WASDE, winter wheat seedings, and quarterly stock report jammed into 1 day. This will most likely lead to volatility that day.

Weather

It's nice to remember what precipitation feels like, as rain and and snow have been falling over large portions of our draw area in the last 24 hours! This is expected to continue through late tonight. National Weather Service at Dodge City is calling for 1.5-2.5" of melted precipitation in this system in GCC country. Temperatures warm up slightly headed into the weekend and next week, with highs in the 50s and night time lows hovering around 30 degrees. The extended forecast is currently showing a chance for more moisture next weekend.


 

Trivia Answers

  1. Paris

  2. Randy