Monday Corn Closed Red

The corn market ended the day with fractional to 2 3/4 cent losses to start the week. Midday corn futures are off their lows, but still fractionally to 2 1/2 cents in the red. 

USDA’s NASS Crop Progress data showed TX corn planting reached 20% complete as of 3/5. That is 7% points ahead of the average pace. Milo was shown 14% planted, matching the average pace. 

USDA announced some old crop corn bookings this morning with 110k MT sold to Japan and 182.4k MT sold to unknown destinations. 

US corn offers from the PNW to Asia are $4-5 below South American offers. 

Weekly Inspections data had 899,810 MT of corn exports for the week that ended 3/2. That was up from 650k MT last week but was about 700k MT below the same week last year. Mexico was the top destination for the week with 375k MT of the total. Accumulated corn exports were marked at 15.285 MMT as of 3/2, compared to 24.787 MMT last season. 

Poland and Ukraine agreed to terms for Ukrainian grain shipments through Polish ports. The deal, separate from the Black Sea corridors, will go into effect 3/8. Turkey’s Foreign Minister announced Turkey is working to renew the export corridor deal. 

China’s economic planner announced a goal to boost ag production by 10 MMT to 650 across all crops. 

AgRural reported the Center-South corn planting for Brazil reached 70% complete. That compared to 55% last week and 80% last year. 

Ahead of the WASDE report on Wednesday, analysts are looking for USDA to trim 3.6 MMT off the Argentina corn crop, to 43.4 MMT on average. The full range expects at least a 1 MMT cut, with as much as a 6 MMT reduction. For Brazil, the trade average guess is to drop output by 100k MT, but the range of estimates is between -3 MMT and +5 MMT. 

Mar 23 Corn  closed at $6.44 1/2, down 3/4 cent,

Nearby Cash   was $6.37 1/8, down 2 1/2 cents,

May 23 Corn  closed at $6.37, down 2 3/4 cents,

Jul 23 Corn  closed at $6.25 1/2, down 2 1/2 cents,