Soybeans climbed to new heights overnight while corn and wheat posted modest gains. In outside markets, the US dollar index was making a run at 7 days of losses while equity futures and crude oil were also weaker.
Soybeans got a boost overnight when news late Monday suggested crop losses in Argentina were going to be around 9 MMT versus previous estimates of 5 MMT. In other South America news, crops analyst Celeres sharply lowered its forecast on Monday for Brazil's second annual corn crop by 10 percent to 52.8 MMT from the previous month due to bad weather over the main growing areas.
However, US early season growing conditions continue to be nearly ideal. Planting progress for both corn and soybeans sped along last week with US corn planting reaching 45% complete as compared to 30% last week, while soybeans are at 8% planted versus only 3% last week. Winter wheat crop ratings also continued their uptrend hitting 61% good-to-excellent versus 59% previously.
In currency news, Brazil’s Real took a second day to the downside, giving up nearly 3% from the high’s set on Friday. Monday’s closing prices for Brazil & US port export prices for soybeans showed Brazil at a $10/MT premium to US beans. Two weeks ago US soybeans were $3/MT more expensive than Brazil.
Oil futures dropped on Tuesday, with renewed fears of a supply glut hitting investor confidence ahead of weekly inventory data that are expected to show an increase in crude supplies. Reports said on Monday that energy data provider Genscape reported a weekly climb in crude stockpiles of more than 800,000 barrels at Cushing. API weekly crude stocks will be released this afternoon.
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