-Wheat sales sharply below expectations
-New crop corn/soybean sales solid, old crop sales minimal
-SBM sales remain strong
See this post for details of this week’s USDA Export Sales data.
U.S. wheat sales, for the week ended 8/16/18, were a mere 240k tonnes (8.8 million bushels), sharply below market expectations of 450-850k tonnes and were down significantly from the previous week’s 29.5 million, while being the 2nd lowest of the first 11 weeks of the 2018/19 marketing year. Optimism has been building a bit in the market of late for a potential pick-up in U.S. wheat export sales given the multiple global issues this year, but that certainly hasn’t been the case yet as weekly sales have averaged just 14.5 million bushels/week in 2018/19 vs last year’s 16.5 million/week during the same period. Total commitments of 314 million bushels are down 26% from last year’s 424 million at this time, as sales will need to average roughly 17.3 million bushels/week over the entire remainder of the marketing year if the USDA’s 1.025 billion bushel export projection is to be met – a massive 59% stronger than last year’s 10.9 million bushels/week average sales from this point forward.
Old crop corn sales were minimal last week at 173k tonnes (200-500k expected), but shouldn’t be all that surprising with only two weeks left in the marketing year. Interestingly, though, there is a sizable 225 million bushels of outstanding corn sales on the books vs 113 million at this time last year and implies the potential for a larger-than-usual amount of old crop sales may be carried through to the new marketing year. Even if 50 million bushels of corn is shipped per week to end the year, as has been the case in recent weeks, carry-over sales to next year could be around 125 million bushels vs last year’s 40 million. New crop sales were solid at 1.055 MMT (41.5 million bushels), slightly above market expectations of 700k-1.0 MMT, and put 2018/19 total commitments at 390 million bushels vs new crop sales at this time last year of 243 million.
Old crop soybean sales were minimal, as well, at just 153k tonnes (5.6 million bushels) and compared to market expectations of 100-300k tonnes. We would note, though, that last week’s soybean sales were revised lower to just 2.0 million bushels from the 4.9 million originally reported, which artificially inflated this week’s sales accordingly as they would have been just 2.7 million bushels without the revision. With total commitments at 2.159 billion bushels and outstanding sales still relatively high at 159 million bushels, it appears the USDA’s recently-raised 2.110 billion bushel export projection may have been slightly too optimistic. New crop sales were strong at 1.149 MMT (42.2 million bushels), with the largest going to Mexico (403k tonnes) and unknown (360k tonnes), and were well above market expectations of 400-650k tonnes. 2018/19 total commitments of 464 million bushels are solidly above new crop sales at this time last year of 365 million.
Soybean meal sales remain impressive with 213k tonnes sold for 2017/18 last week (100-200k tonnes expected) and were significantly above the roughly 15k tonnes/week in which sales need to average over the final 6 weeks of the marketing year in order for the USDA’s export projection to be reachable. New crop sales were decent at 109k tonnes (50-200k tonnes expected), but 2018/19 total commitments of 956k tonnes lag last year’s new crop sales at this time of 1.503 MMT. Old crop soybean oil sales were 5.2k tonnes (0-20k expected), which is all that is really needed on average based on the USDA’s current export projection. New crop sales were minimal, which is common, at 1.1k tonnes with 2018/19 total commitments at 41k tonnes vs new crop sales at this last year of 17k.
