Wheat Drops as Traders Collect Profits -- Daily Grain Highlights
January 26 2022 - 3:08PM
Dow Jones News
By Kirk Maltais
--Wheat for March delivery fell 2.8% to $7.95 a bushel on the
Chicago Board of Trade Wednesday, with traders taking advantage of
a slowdown in news out of the Russia-Ukraine border to take
profits.
--Corn for March delivery rose 1.1% to $6.27 a bushel.
--Soybeans for March delivery rose 2.3% to $14.40 a bushel.
HIGHLIGHTS
Locking in Profits: Wheat futures fell today, with traders
electing to engage some profit-taking as news out of the
Russia-Ukraine border has temporarily stagnated. "NATO and Russia
appear to be locked into a stalemate with threatening economic
sanction barbs being bantered between the U.S./Europe and Russia,"
said AgResource. Traders also waited for the Federal Reserve to
announce its intention for future rate hikes, and will likely trade
on today's press conference tomorrow.
Lingering Risk: While corn and wheat futures fell amid
profit-taking and a standstill in news out of the Russia-Ukraine
border, soybeans rose - with traders thinking that production risks
remain in South American growing areas, even with recent rainfall.
"The market is choosing to ignore soft demand dynamics in China to
focus on what it perceives to be lingering production risks in the
weeks ahead in South America, coupled with the emerging renewable
diesel industry that will significantly ramp up demand for soyoil
in the months and years ahead," said Arlan Suderman of StoneX.
Scattered rainfall is expected in Brazil and Argentina through the
weekend, according to DTN.
INSIGHTS
Optimistic Forecast: Grain traders surveyed by The Wall Street
Journal this week are forecasting that export sales of soybeans,
soymeal, and soyoil are all expected to be higher for the week
ended January 20. Traders surveyed are expecting soybean sales to
total anywhere from 700,000 metric tons to 2.2 million tons, while
soymeal is expected between 100,000 tons to 600,000 tons and soyoil
is expected to total 10,000 tons to 40,000 tons. The high end of
all three of the forecasts are higher than their totals reported
last week, driven by flash sale announcements from the USDA in the
past week.
Stacking Up: U.S. stocks of ethanol rose as expected this week,
hitting their highest level since May 2020. In its latest weekly
report, the EIA said that for the week ended January 21, U.S.
ethanol inventories totaled 24.48 million barrels - up from 23.59
million barrels last week. It's the most since May 2020, when
inventories were assessed at 25.61 million barrels. Analysts
surveyed this week by Dow Jones had forecast inventories to land
anywhere between 23.7 million barrels and 24.49 million barrels.
Daily production, meanwhile, fell for the week - dropping to 1.04
million barrels per day. Analysts had forecast production to be
anywhere from 1.01 million barrels to 1.09 million barrels.
AHEAD
--The USDA will release its weekly export sales report at 8:30
a.m. ET Thursday.
-Mondelez International Inc. will release its fourth-quarter
earnings report after the stock market closes on Thursday.
--The CFTC will release its weekly commitment of traders report
at 3:30 p.m. ET Friday.
Write to Kirk Maltais at kirk.maltais@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 26, 2022 14:53 ET (19:53 GMT)
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