By Kirk Maltais


--Corn for March delivery fell 1.4% to $4.84 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade on Wednesday, putting an end to five straight sessions of higher closes as crude oil tumbled throughout the day.

--Soybeans for January delivery fell 0.7% to $12.96 3/4 a bushel.

--Wheat for March delivery rose 0.2% to $6.33 1/2 a bushel.


HIGHLIGHTS


Bigger Picture: "The primary driver of corn, soy and soy product markets today is a further collapse in crude oil," AgResource said in a note. "Energy markets remain hyper-focused on Monday's downgrade to Chinese debt and general pessimism surrounding global economic growth in 2024."

Quenching Thirst: Dry areas of Brazil, mostly in the north, are expected to receive some rain, said Terry Reilly of Marex, which in turn pressured corn and soybeans down ahead of Friday's WASDE report. "A good rain event during the first-half of December could become the difference between a 3- (to) 5 million-ton loss for Brazilian soybeans versus a 10-plus million decline if drought conditions persist," Reilly said.

Loading Up: China has purchased more U.S. wheat, which kept those futures afloat in an otherwise down day. The USDA confirmed another flash sale of 372,000 metric tons of soft red winter wheat to China for delivery in the 2023/24 marketing year, along with 136,000 tons of soybeans. For wheat, Wednesday's sale makes it over 1 million tons sold to China this week alone, on top of more sales reported in previous weeks. "This really spells out how poor their wheat crop was this summer, and very likely sets the USDA up to increase wheat exports in Friday's USDA report," said Naomi Blohm of Total Farm Marketing in a note.

Production Push: Daily ethanol production is at its highest rate since the summer, according to EIA data. Daily ethanol production averaged 1.076 million barrels a day for the week ended Dec. 1, which is up 65,000 barrels a day from the previous week's average. The uptick exceeds the forecasts of analysts surveyed by Dow Jones this week, who expected production to land at 1.001 million to 1.06 million barrels a day. The last time average production had reached this high was the week ended July 21, where production averaged 1.094 million barrels a day.


INSIGHT


Big Question: Projections of crop sizes aren't expected to change much in the WASDE report, but what may spark a big change is what the USDA thinks about demand prospects, particularly the export market. Less demand overseas could lead to greater domestic stockpiles and push futures prices lower.


AHEAD


--The USDA will release its weekly export sales report at 8:30 a.m. ET Thursday.

--The USDA will release its monthly World Supply and Demand Estimates at noon ET Friday.

--The CFTC will release its weekly Commitment of Traders report at 3:30 p.m. ET Friday.


Write to Kirk Maltais at kirk.maltais@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

12-06-23 1520ET