Perspective: Mid-Day Commentary for March 21

By: Arlan Suderman, Chief Commodities Economist

Tue, 21 Mar 2023, 14:49

Perspective: Midday Commentary

Matt Zeller

Senior Market Intelligence Analyst

March 21 - The Dow Jones Industrials surged out of the gates this morning but have pared gains back somewhat since, up just over 200 points as of the time of this writing. Regional bank shares rebounded nicely on Janet Yellen's comments, while the entire marketplace anxiously awaits the results of the March FOMC meeting which kicks off today. The odds stand at 83% for a quarter-point rate increase tomorrow, and 17% for an unchanged result.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said this morning that the U.S. government is prepared to step in and protect smaller regional banks if further failures occur, after aiding Silicon Valley and Signature Banks earlier this month. Her remarks said "The steps we took (in the previous failures) were not focused on aiding specific banks or classes of banks", and that "similar actions could be warranted" if more small institutions fail.

U.S. Existing Home Sales for February came in at 4.58 million, well above the 4.20 mln figure estimated by the trade, and up from 4.00 mln in January. It was the largest monthly bounce since mid-2020 and it snapped a year-long decline as interest rates and prices rose. Buyers are likely looking for a potential decline in rates or at least a steadying pace. The number of homes for sale in the country held at 980,000, or a 2.6 month supply - that's well below the five-month supply that realtors cite as the max to indicate a "tight" market.

The grain markets are catching a bid today, led by the nearby months with old-crop supplies fairly tight across the country, particularly for soybeans. Old-crop/new-crop spreads are widening out - again, particularly in soybeans - with optimism rampant for better production in 2023. An active precipitation pattern has aided moisture supplies across the bulk of U.S. growing areas, resulting in at least some rebounding of state winter wheat condition ratings heading into the spring months; we'll likely see a few planting delays as cold and wet forecasts linger now up into early April, but those concerns are largely a thing of the past for the market with U.S. farmers more efficient and planting/seed technology having made leaps and bounds in the past decade. Ten days remain until the trade has a fresh fundamental dataset to peruse in the Quarterly Stocks and Planting Intentions Reports.

The USDA reported its fifth daily flash corn sale to China in the past six sessions, this one just 136k tonnes, or 5.35 million bushels; that does bring cumulative sales over that span to 88.5 million bushels, and they'll start to show up officially on the weekly export sales reports starting this Thursday. Total U.S. corn sales so far in 2022/23 stand at 268 mln bu - still over 200 mbu behind last year's pace at this point. China imported 1.5 MMT of corn from Brazil over the first two months of the calendar year, according to the country's customs data, and they'll likely make Brazil their main supplier when available, over more expensive U.S. supplies and reduced availability from Ukraine.

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