By Kirk Maltais
Export sales of U.S. soybean and wheat reported by the Department of Agriculture this week both landed below the low-end of forecasts from analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.
In its latest weekly export sales report, the USDA said soybean export sales for the week ended Dec. 26 totaled 484,700 metric tons in the 2024/25 marketing year. That's a marketing-year low, the USDA said, down 51% from the previous week. Wheat sales totaled 140,600 tons in 2024/25, also a marketing-year low and down 77% from the previous week.
For both soybeans and wheat, sales landed below the low-end of analyst estimates. Surveyed analysts had forecast wheat to land between 200,000 tons and 525,000 tons, while soybeans were expected to fall within 500,000 tons to 1.05 million tons. Corn sales landed on the low-end of analyst forecasts, totaling 777,000 tons for 2024/25.
China was the top buyer of U.S. soybeans for the week, while South Korea was the leading buyer of wheat and Mexico was the top buyer of corn.
Low export sales are expected to be a pressure point for grain futures in Friday's session, says Naomi Blohm of Total Farm Marketing in a note.
Most-active corn futures trading on the CBOT are down 0.5% premarket, while soybeans are down 0.6% and wheat falls 0.9%.
To see related data, search "U.S. Export Sales: Weekly Sales Totals" in Dow Jones NewsPlus.
Write to Kirk Maltais at kirk.maltais@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-03-25 0933ET