The biggest news to move the markets last week were multiple export sales for corn, soybeans and wheat.
“The soft red winter wheat market had been stronger and responded partially in response to that [purchase by China],” said Brian Basting of Advance Trading, Inc. “China has been very active.”
The research department at Advance Trading crunched some numbers that show unshipped corn and soybean sales for the new crop year to China are approaching 1.24 billion bushels, an increase of 65 percent from last year.
“That’s the second highest total ever, and only slightly behind what was on the books four years ago, and that was the record total,” said Basting. “It’s largely due to China the last month to six weeks, and they’ve pushed soybean prices to the highest level we’ve seen since March.”
Some reports out of China are saying the southern growing region have been receiving a lot of rain and have been flooding. Corn bushels are being sold for an additional $7 a bushel. Basting says that the Chinese futures market made a new all-time high last week.
“Domestically the prices that are being seen in China are due to a combination of factors, but not only corn at an all-time high, but new highs were also made in meal and oil,” he said. “All of those things are triggering this response in terms of importing cheaper from the U.S.”
Basting talks about the latest Drought Monitor and expanding drought in the far western and eastern parts of the Corn Belt in his full comments in the player above.
