Perspective: Mid-Day Commentary for November 15

By: Arlan Suderman, Chief Commodities Economist

Mon, 15 Nov 2021, 17:31

Perspective: Midday Commentary

Arlan Suderman

Chief Commodities Economist

November 15 - U.S. stocks pushed higher, before stumbling mid-morning. The VIX is trading near 17 midday today, while the dollar index is trading near 95.2, which is just below one-year highs for the greenback. The dollar is rising as yields on 10-year Treasuries push to their highest level since October 27th at 1.62%. Crude oil prices are roughly 1% lower, while the Ags are mixed at midday. Notable selling emerged in the Minneapolis wheat market on disappointing demand at current price levels, while the winter wheat markets maintained modest strength in spread trading. Soymeal prices were on fire again today as a protein shortage in Canada tightens the U.S. market. That's providing support for double-digit gains in soybeans. Corn prices traded both sides of unchanged this morning, with traders taking profits on recent gains, but still seeing support for the 2022 new-crop contracts that need to maintain strength to hang onto acres amid high crop input prices.

The National Oilseed Processors Association reported that its members crushed 183.993 million bushels of soybeans in October, up from 153.800 million in September, but slightly below the 185.245 million crushed in the same month a year ago. NOPA members typically crush close to 94% of total soybean crush. Factoring in non-member crush, that would suggest that the crush pace through the first two months of the soybean marketing year would keep the year-to-date total about 7 million bushels above the seasonal pace needed to hit USDA's target for the year.

USDA inspected 33.7 million bushels of corn in the week ending November 11, along with 0.3 million bushels of grain sorghum, 76.2 million bushels of soybeans and 14.3 million bushels of wheat. Of those totals, shipments to China during the week included 0.04 million bushels of corn, 0.006 million bushels of grain sorghum, 48.4 million bushels of soybeans, and 0.02 million bushels of wheat. China has really stepped up its grain sorghum purchases over the past month, but it has not yet stepped up the shipments of those purchases. Chinese soybean crush has increased to roughly 70 million bushels per week, up from a little over 60 million a month ago. Yet, that's down from the more typical pace of 75 - 80 million bushels due to soft demand from the hog sector currently.

Marketing year soybean export shipments to date fall short of the seasonal pace needed to hit USDA's target by 57 million bushels, versus being short by 56 million the previous week. The graphic below shows that weekly soybean shipments fell back below the seasonal pace needed to hit USDA's target, after spending much of the past month above it. Note how the problems at the ports of New Orleans kept us well below the pace to start the year. I anticipate that this week's total will be revised higher in next week's data, so I'm not too concerned about that. However, I am concerned whether we'll be able to maintain a sufficient pace through December to reach USDA's total, particularly with cheaper Brazilian supplies becoming available in January. The earliest harvested soybeans should come out of the field in late December. Marketing year corn export shipments to date fall short of the seasonal pace needed to hit USDA's target by 139 million bushels, and that deficit continues to grow on a week to week basis.

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