Andrey Sizov
06.02.2024
On Monday, wheat prices declined. The March SRW wheat contract closed at $5.90/bu ($217/mt; -1.6% compared to Friday). March Euronext wheat prices fell to €210.00/mt ($226/mt; -1.5%). U.S. corn remained steady at $4.43/bu ($174/mt; unchanged).
The strengthening of the U.S. dollar applied pressure on U.S. grain prices. On Monday, the DXY index reached a mid-November high of 104.45 (+0.5% compared to Friday).
Limited support for corn prices came from daily U.S. export sales. On Monday, the USDA reported a sale of 155 TMT of corn to Mexico, which helped mitigate the negative impact of weak export inspection results. In the week leading up to February 1, exporters sold 624 TMT of corn, below the minimum estimate of 750 TMT.
Analysts surveyed by Reuters expect that the USDA may increase the corn production forecast for Argentina and decrease it for Brazil in the upcoming WASDE report. The average estimate for Argentine corn production is 55.6 MMT, 0.6 MMT lower than the January WASDE estimate. The forecast for Brazil was reduced by 2.7 MMT to 124.3 MMT. Ending corn stocks are expected to be at 324.0 MMT, 1.2 MMT below the January WASDE estimate.
