Corn commentary: Corn prices stirred but not shaken by WASDE

Corn futures prices took off in the immediate aftermath of the release of the February WASDE, with 2 cents added to the front month contract.

However, with wheat shedding ground and most changes in line with market expectations, values soon reset to cling close to overnight levels at $3.65/bu for March and $3.73/bu for May.

With a day of big data in the offing, price moves across all Agricensus assessments reflected the physical loading window’s move into March, with Agricensus now assessing March and April physical cargoes.

The WASDE brought few surprises – US exports were increased to reflect the surge in buying that the country has experienced since it became clearly the cheapest resupply globally, with the revised estimate of 2.05 billion bushels reflecting a 125 million bushel increase.

In line with that, the USDA’s export sales data also underlined that move, with weekly data for the week ending February 1 totalling 1.77 million mt, above the average of analysts’ expectations.

Also, Argentina saw the cut that many had expected, with production figures reined in from 42 million mt, to 39 million mt.

Complementary data from the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange also showed corn planting has now been completed on 5.4 million hectares, with BAGE’s corn production levels also matching the USDA’s at 39 million mt.

The country also saw 204,435 mt of corn export licenses granted with 175,145 mt coming from the 2017/18 marketing year.