By Kirk Maltais
--Wheat for July delivery fell 4.2%, to $5.90 1/4 a bushel, on the Chicago Board of Trade on Monday, falling to their lowest since December 2020 as U.S. exports are seen as being too expensive to compete on the world market.
--Soybeans for July delivery fell 3.1% to $12.95 3/4 a bushel.
--Corn for July delivery fell 1.7% to $5.94 a bushel.
HIGHLIGHTS
Key Focus: While weather concerns during the Memorial Day weekend was a key factor weighing on grain futures in early trading Monday, demand concerns quickly became the main pressure point in the afternoon, said Donna Hughes of StoneX. "Russia is flooding the market with low-priced wheat and China prefers the corn and soybeans from Brazil and all this makes for some solid pressure today," Hughes said. Those demand concerns sent wheat below the $6 per bushel mark for the first time since December 2020.
Dry Weekend: Weather conditions were dry over the holiday weekend, but not enough to damage plantings. "Most farmers would agree that acute May dryness pushed seeding progress and that no yield potential has been lost due to early diminished moisture need of seedlings," AgResource said in a note. However, the firm adds, continued dryness like that seen this past weekend will eventually become a negative for the spring crop.
INSIGHT
Piling Up: Wheat in Russia is accumulating, SovEcon's Andrey Sizov said in a note. The firm says that as of May 1, on-farm wheat stocks totaled 12 million metric tons, according to government data. That's twice as high as the five-year average, SovEcon said. "The key factor contributing to the accumulation of stocks was the record-high crop of 2022," the firm said. "Rosstat estimates the Russian wheat crop at 104.2 million tons, which is 32% higher than the five-year average."
Steady Inspections: Shipments of U.S. grain exports were generally on par with totals reported last week, the USDA said. For the week ended May 25, the USDA said corn export inspections totaled 1.31 million metric tons, soybean inspections 239,736 tons and wheat inspections came to 382,031 tons. That put corn inspections down slightly versus the week ending May 18, while soybean inspections were higher and wheat was lower.
AHEAD
--The USDA will release its monthly Agricultural Prices report at 3 p.m. ET Wednesday.
--The EIA will release its weekly ethanol production and stocks report at 10:30 a.m. ET Thursday.
--The USDA will release its monthly Grain Crushings report at 3 p.m. ET Thursday.
Write to Kirk Maltais at kirk.maltais@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
05-30-23 1615ET
