Wednesday May 22, 2024

• The flash sale of corn to Spain reported yesterday is a result of the country’s feud with the Argentine president
  • Argentine president had insulted the Spanish Prime Minister’s wife
  • Spain permanently withdrew their Argentina ambassador and demanded a public apology
  • Spain sought out corn from the US
    • in 2023 Spain had 1.66 billion worth of imports from Argentina
• Wheat holding strong on continued Black Sea worries and a forecast that offers minimal rain over West Russia the next 10 days
  • Drought also in parts of Ukraine, minimal damage reported from frost earlier this month
  • Wheat futures have climbed over 20% in the last 5 weeks
  • Corn futures are up 6% in the same 5 week period
• Corn futures trying to follow wheat with the potential for expanded EU feed use
  • World wheat feeding is forecasted to decline 6-9MMT on existing price spreads, this should boost world corn trade in 2024-25
  • Corn futures are well off their lows but have not yet surged to the extent of wheat, creating a wheat-corn premium not seen in almost two years
• Traders reported Chinese soybean purchases around 130K tonnes for July shipment, still nothing on the books for new crop bean purchases