China within the last year has bought historic volumes of U.S. corn and soybeans at prices significantly lower than those today, conjuring up memories of an American trade fiasco involving the Soviet Union a half-century ago.
6 Min Read
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (Reuters) - Anyone looking for fireworks following the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Tuesday forecasts was not at all disappointed, but for most market participants, the recent trend in some of the numbers might be downright unsettling.
Farmer Roger Hadley sitting in his John Deere combine harvests corn from his fields in Woodburn, Indiana, U.S., October 16, 2020. REUTERS/Bing Guan
The U.S. corn figures were the most surprising in the data landslide published by USDA on Tuesday, particularly for quarterly stocks and 2020 crop yield. Both of those numbers fell considerably below the trade range of estimates, which were historically wide for yield.
Chicago-traded corn and soybeans ended 2020 with a bang and the fireworks have continued into 2021. The unprecedented rally has many traders and analysts cautiously anticipating where prices will head next, and rewinding the clock by a decade might reveal some possibilities.
“Talks between the governments of Brazil and China are in
advanced stages, with many of the technical barriers and issues relating to preventing the spread of pests or crop diseases in the process of being resolved, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are ongoing. Traders also recently met members of Brazilian grain exporter group Anec to discuss the issue, the people said.
It could also pose a threat to the U.S., which has sold the most corn on record to the Asian nation in the current season.
Brazil and China are in talks to boost corn trade between the two nations, though raising exports to the Asian nation at this time is unfeasible due to inter-harvest supply shortages, Abramilho, a corn producers association, said on Wednesday.
5 Min Read
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (Reuters) - Chicago-traded grain and oilseed futures continued rising last week, and while speculators were buyers of soybeans, soy products and wheat during the period, they trimmed bullishness in corn for the third consecutive week.
CBOT corn futures rose more than 1% in the week ended Dec. 15, but money managers reduced their net long position to 250,260 futures and options contracts from 269,583 a week earlier, according to data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Both commercial users and other reportable traders bought corn during that period, but trade estimates predicted commodity funds had bought 15,000 corn futures. At 30,000 contracts, those estimates were also overly aggressive for soybeans, which rallied more than 3% during that week.