US grain inspections see wheat, soy shine, corn disappoint

The USDA’s grains inspection report saw wheat and soy outdo analysts’ expectations Monday, while corn fell just below the range of prospects in a mixed bag for the US grains sector.

Soybean saw 1.77 million mt inspected for export, a rise of 500,000 mt versus the previous week and marginally more than seen in the same week of 2016., with China the most significant buyer.

Analysts had expected between 1.1 and 1.4 million mt, with the volume inspected taking US soybean exports for the current marketing year to 25.8 million mt to date.

However, despite bucking expectations, overall exports are down 4 million mt on the same period of the previous marketing year – which had already clocked up 29.6 million mt by this stage of the 2016/17 marketing year.

Wheat also sizeably exceeded expectations, the 585,637 mt inspected well above the 450,000 ceiling that analysts had put on exports.

That takes exports to 13.6 million mt, nearly one million me behind the 14.5 million seen at this stage in the previous marketing year, with Indonesia by far the biggest receiver at 115,982 mt.

Corn remains the problem child, with the 594,281 mt inspected falling just below the range of analyst guesses, which had braced for figures in the 600,000 to 800,000 mt range.

That came despite a recent surge in buying interest across wheat, soy and corn, with a string of private export sales since the beginning of December accounting for around 2.5 million mt of corn, wheat and soybean exports.

Exports to date in the 2016/2017 corn marketing year stand at 9.1 million mt, well below the 15.4 million mt that had been seen by this stage of the 2016/2017 marketing year.

Once again, Mexico was the biggest single recipient, with farmers through December stepping up their campaign to highlight the significance of the North American Free Trade Agreement to the health of the corn industry.

In all cases, the US grains and oilseeds sector lags its 2016/17 export performance as the country grapples with increased competition from emergent rivals - Argentina and Brazil in soy and corn, and Argentina again as well as Russia in wheat.