Wednesday March 31, 2021

• Headlines will be dominated by USDA report today as the long awaited report is finally being released at noon – at risk of sounding like a broken record I will break down one last time the what the report will tell us
• USDA prospective planting acres 
  • Overall expecting about 183 million acres divided between corn and soys – average estimate 90 million soybeans and 93.2 million corn 
  • Given the high prices it is unlikely we are going to get a low acres surprise in total (get lower corn and soybean acres than expected)
  • However where we could see a surprise is in the break down of the acres between corn and soybeans 
  • At the end of the day this report is merely a ‘rough draft’ for 2021 planting, something to go off of knowing that weather over the next 2 months is the ultimate determinant of planting capabilities 
• March 1 Quarterly Stocks numbers – we may get a surprise from those numbers 
  • Corn stocks will give us an indication on how much feed was used in the last three months as there is not a consistent way to track that usage beyond quarterly stocks
  • Soybeans stocks will hopefully reflect the strong demand through the winter and this number will either ease tightness concerns if larger than expected or reinforce concern over supplies 
• What are we going to talk about post report? I am sure in the coming week we will see many people argue whatever news comes from the USDA today until the report is forgotten completely before turning our attentions to the safrinha corn crop in Brazil, Argentine soybean harvest and then the planting conditions in the U.S.