-Soybean sales as expected with modest sales to China
-Corn sales within expectations, but remain quite weak
-Wheat sales at top of expectations
-SBM sales as expected, SBO sales solid
U.S. soybean sales, for the week ended 10/24/19, were reported at 944k tonnes (34.7 million bushels), which were within market expectations of 500k-1.1 MMT, but actually appeared better than they really were as USDA revised last week’s sales down to just 12.5 million bushels from initial data reflecting net sales for the week of 17.5 million. Without the revision, this week’s net sales would have been 29.7 million bushels, roughly 810k tonnes. This week’s activity reflected new net sales to China of 420k tonnes, with essentially no new sales being reported as “unknown.” Total sales to China are now officially at 6.2 MMT vs just 964k tonnes at this time last year. With minimal sales being seen last year amid the lack of any Chinese buying, current total commitments of 708 million bushels have been able to close the gap to last year’s 784 million bushels to just 9.7% after being down more than 40% at the start of the marketing year. Over the next four weeks last year, soybean sales totaled just 70 million bushels (1.9 MMT) so this trend is likely to continue. In order to reach the USDA’s 1.775 billion bushel export projection, we estimate soybean sales will need to average roughly 24.6 million bushels/week through the end of August vs last year’s 22.9 million/week from this point forward.
U.S. corn sales last week of 549k tonnes (21.6 million bushels) were within market expectations of 300-800k tonnes, were up from the previous week’s 19.3 million bushels and were the best in four weeks, but hardly would be considered impressive or even encouraging. The majority of sales this week went to Mexico with 343k tonnes, followed by the next largest sales being roughly 170k tonnes to unknown. Over the last four weeks, corn sales have averaged just 16.7 million bushels/week, nearly half of the average “needed” sales pace of around 31.8 million bushels/week based on the USDA’s 1.900 billion bushel export projection. Total commitments of 449 million bushels remain down a massive 48% from last year”s 860 million bushels at this time. Year ago corn sales from this point forward averaged 25.1 million bushels/week.
U.S. wheat sales of 494k tonnes (18.1 million bushels) were at the extreme top end of market expectations of 200-500k tonnes and rebounded from the previous week’s poor sales of just 9.6 million bushels, but were still below last year’s same-week sales of 21.4 million bushels. This week’s sales were best in three weeks and 2nd best of the last 7 weeks, while also being solidly above the roughly 12.5 million bushels/week in which we estimate sales need to average in order to reach the USDA’s 950 million bushel export projection. Overall, this week’s wheat sales were decent in context of big picture views of the 2019/20 export program and other recent activity but not much to get excited about either. Total commitments of 536 million bushels are up 11% from last year’s 481 million, with the year-over-year gain continuing to slowly decline. Wheat sales from this point forward last year averaged 15.1 million bushels/week.
Soybean meal sales of 179k tonnes were within market expectations of 100-250k tonnes, were up from the previous week’s 110k, but were well below last year’s same-week sales of 317k tonnes. Total commitments through four weeks of the 2019/20 marketing year are down nearly 15% from last year vs USDA estimating export up a minor 1% year-over-year. Soybean oil sales were solid at 30k tonnes (0-24k expected), with 11k to Colombia, 10k to South Korea and 6k to Mexico. Soybean oil total commitments of 233k tonnes are up 4% from last year vs USDA estimating 2019/20 exports declining nearly 15% year-over-year.
On a side note, pork export sales to China this week were minimal at 1.9k tonnes (total commitments 401k tonnes vs 22k tonnes last year).
