Monday April 21st, 2025

• The grain market is starting off the week mixed. We remain close to $6/bu new crop corn. We should see a strong US planting pace on this afternoons crop progress report, progress will slow this week due to widespread rains. 
• Weekend rainfall impacted parts of the Corn Belt and the US plains, some areas saw over 5 inches over the last 72 hours.
  • The Southern Plains and southwestern Corn Belt are set to see large amounts of rain over the next week. 
• USDA released weekly drought monitor data on Thursday. US areas experiencing drought:
  • Corn 30%
  • Soybeans 23%
  • Winter Wheat 34%
  • Spring Wheat 43%
• US ethanol exports have had a 27% increase from last season. The large increase in ethanol stocks has contributed to an 11% year over year increase in exports of US grains in all forms.
  • Canada remains the leading importer of US ethanol. 
• US Export Sales:
  • Corn export sales increased 99% compared to the previous week and 39% compared to the 4 week average. Mexico was the largest corn buyer of the week.
  • Soybean export sales rebounded with the largest sales week we have seen since the start of March.
  • Wheat sales had only 2.8mbu worth of sales. the US continues to struggle to find new wheat export demand. 
• The Funds:
  • Were next buyers of 14k contracts during the week ending last Tuesday, the net long of 145k contracts is modest.
  • The funds were also buyers of 71k soybean contracts, last week was the first time since the last week of February that the funds held a net long position.
  • They bought 4k wheat contracts bringing their net short to 86k contracts which is large historically.