-Acreage/ending stocks trade ideas for USDA Ag Outlook Forum numbers
-Palm oil sharply lower overnight
-Ukraine wheat crop seen lower/corn matching last year’s record
-Texas winter wheat conditions improve nicely in latest week
This week’s regular EIA ethanol/energy reports are delayed until tomorrow due to Monday’s holiday, while Export Sales will be out on Friday. CFTC COT data will still be out on Friday as usual.
 USDA’s Ag Outlook Forum will get underway tomorrow morning and continue Friday. Traditionally, USDA has provided initial new crop acreage and average farm price ideas in the early Thursday session, with full balance sheets provided first thing Friday morning. A Bloomberg survey indicated average ideas for USDA’s 2020/21 planted acreage estimates of: corn 93.6 million acres (92.0-95.5 mil range of ideas) vs 89.7 mil last year and 94.5 mil reflected in the 10-year baseline projections, soybean area 85.0 mil (83.0-87.5 mil range) vs 76.1 mil last year/84.0 mil baseline, and wheat 45.2 mil (43.7-48.0 mil range) vs 45.2 mil last year/45.0 mil baseline. To be revealed in Friday’s USDA full balance sheet view, the average estimate of 2020/21 U.S. corn ending stocks is 2.496 bil bu (1.742-3.050 bil range) vs current 2019/20 stocks estimated at 1.896 bil and USDA’s 2.754 bil bu estimate in the baseline projections, soybean ending stocks 533 mil bu (328-825 mil range) vs 425 mil this year/518 mil baseline, and wheat 845 mil bu (690 mil-1.087 bil range) vs 940 mil this year/950 mil baseline.
ï‚· Palm oil prices were hammered again overnight, falling by 3.5% in the benchmark May contract and now down 10% over the last nine sessions. Weak demand concerns continue to weigh on prices, as Feb 1-15 exports were down an estimated 7-10% from last month, while traders remain quite pessimistic on export demand through March with very little interest being shown by China and India remaining out of the Malaysian market.
 Ukrainian ag consultant ProAgro sees the country’s 2020/21 wheat crop declining to 26.2 MMT from last year’s record 28.3 MMT (USDA 29.0 MMT) due largely to a decline in planted area. Early ideas on the corn crop reflect the potential for production matching last year’s 35.8 MMT record once again.
ï‚· South Korean feed mills bought 133k tonnes of corn for LH May arrival at $211.54-$211.74/tonne c&f and is expected to be Black Sea origin.
 Texas is the one state providing weekly winter wheat crop condition updates at this time. The wheat crop is currently rated 35% good/excellent and 24% poor/very poor, notably improving from the previous week’s 24% g/e and 38% p/vp rating. At this time last year, the TX crop was 30% g/e and 28% p/vp. Statewide, topsoil moisture is rated adequate/surplus for 66% of crop area with 7% very short, while last year was 57%/12% at this time.
Weather Rains of .50-1â€+ fell across Corrientes, the northern ½ of Santa Fe and far northern Entre Rios yesterday, with dry weather in the rest of the Argentine growing regions yesterday. Mainly dry conditions are expected for the rest of this week, while the 6-10 day outlook saw rain ideas reduced to just some light rains for Buenos Aries by Monday of next week, but mostly dry conditions elsewhere for the period. Brazil saw rains of 1-2†across most of RGDS and western Santa Catarina, with totals of .50-1†in MGDS, Mato Grosso and Goias yesterday. Rains of .50-1â€+ are expected from Parana north in the next 5 days, with RGDS and Santa Catarina having mainly dry weather return today and hang on for the next 5 days. Rains of .50-1.5†are seen for most areas in the 6-10 day period.