TFM Midday Update 5-24-2024

The CME and Total Farm Marketing Offices Will Be Closed Monday, May 27, in Observance of Memorial Day

CORN

Nearby corn is in a roughly 450 to 475 trading range. Support comes from potentially lower Ukraine and South American crops, and Mexico continuing to buy US corn. However, upside resistance comes from the fact that the US crop is getting planted with no major weather issues right now.
In central Brazil, dryness continues to be an issue for the safrinha corn crop, however there may be some scattered rains this weekend.
According to the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange, 28% of the Argentine corn crop is harvested and its good to excellent rating fell from 14% to 11%.
The International Grains Council has lowered their estimate of 23/24 global grain carryout by 3 mmt to 588 mmt; this is 14 mmt below 22/23. They also lowered their 24/25 carryout projection to 580 mmt.

Soybean meal is higher at midday, providing support to soybean futures. There may still be some concern about reduced crush in southern Brazil due to the recent flooding, and there is more rain in their forecast over the next couple of weeks.
Nearby soybeans in the middle of the 100- and 200-day moving averages, roughly 1206 to 1282 respectively. From a big picture perspective, soybeans have been grinding higher since the May 14 low, but are nearing technically overbought levels.
If it becomes too late to plant US corn in some areas due to weather delays, there is a chance that soybean acres could increase beyond the USDA estimate of 86.5 million. The next official acreage report will be on June 28.
According to the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange, 78% of the Argentine soybean crop is harvested.

Despite being the wrong time of year for a rally, funds are believed to have flipped from being net short Chicago and Kansas City wheat futures, to being net long. They are also long Matif wheat futures. This would seem to indicate that the specs are looking for more upside in the wheat market.
The forecasts for the Black Sea region and parts of western Europe should provide support to the wheat market. The former is too dry, while the latter is too wet. Here in the US, dryness in HRW wheat areas should also be supportive.
Early US HRW wheat yields are better than last year and may be better than expectations as well, and while SRW crop conditions are much better than their HRW counterpart, the SRW wheat crop may be smaller due to reduced area and too much rain in some regions (which may cause disease concerns).

Brandon Doherty