One commodity market analyst said there are signs this government shutdown may last longer than previous ones. Arlan Suderman, the chief commodities analyst for StoneX, talked about the potential economic impact.
The longest one in my memory is December 2018 into January 2019, and it went 35 days. That cost our U.S. economy $3 billion, but in perspective, that’s 0.02 percent of GDP. So, still rather small overall. It is a big deal for those people who are not getting paid. It’s a big deal for those who may be missing services they need, and for farmers, that’s like at FSA offices, etc.”
U.S. agriculture will miss out on the regular reports it relies on.
“It also means no reports that we lean on in the marketplace; the flash USDA export sales reports, the weekly export sales reports, the weekly export inspections reports, the weekly crop progress and condition report, and the WASDE report may end up getting delayed or canceled, as well. We did that last in January 2019, when it was canceled, but also in October of 2013, when the WASDE report was canceled. That leaves us without USDA’s production estimates until November.”
That means American agriculture will have to rely on other sources for information.
“It leaves the market kind of in a fog in the meantime, leaning on private sector data. Basically, everyone’s looking for how much the size of the corn crop will be reduced. Will the soybean crop be reduced? If so, what will the scope of the change be? Generally, the harvest yields that we’ve seen so far argue for a much lower corn yield, if you want to believe the anecdotal reports. On soybeans, it’s a much different story. Even in some of the most drought-stricken areas we are seeing, yeah, there are some poor yields, but we’re also seeing some very impressive yields.”