USDA’s June Acreage and Grain Stocks Report is historically one of the more volatile pieces on the calendar, but Monday’s release left the markets relatively flat. Brooks Shaffer is a market analyst with Palmetto Grain in Ridgeland, South Carolina, and says Monday’s corn planting numbers provided little spark.
“On the acreage side, it felt like everybody was strapped in for a bigger number on corn, and it came out almost 120,000 acres less than March intentions, which I would have expected a bigger reaction out of the market. But I think what the market is looking at is we’re getting plenty of rain, so we tighten it up, we take away a little bit of a margin of error, but we haven’t really threatened the balance sheet very much.”
Schaffer says old crop numbers fell within range as well.
“So old crop stocks, if we’d have tightened those up dramatically, you know, maybe the market would have said, maybe we would have had more of a reaction. But since we just tightened them up a little bit, even though it was right below market expectations or right, you know, within the range, the market didn’t really react, because as long as there’s weather on the new crop, then we don’t have anything to react to.”
Somewhat surprisingly, lower-ending soybean stocks didn’t move the needle either.
“The positive news on biofuels is, for the soybeans anyway, is helping support those so, yeah. I mean, it was a little surprising to see an increase in stocks on soybeans from expectations, but the new crop acres were a little bit less. So, you know that probably offsets. It’s August weather that makes beans. So beans have a little more weather ahead to trade. So they aren’t going to press them to the downside, right now yet.”