Weekly corn, soybean and wheat export inspections all met the average trade guess for the week ending Jan. 4. The downside to that – analysts weren’t expecting big results.

Corn export inspections even managed to outpace the average trade guess of 19 million to 31 million bushels, in fact, with a weekly total of 33.4 million bushels. That was also ahead of last week’s total of 28.6 million bushels, but slightly behind this week a year ago (34.6 million bushels). For the 2017/18 marketing year, which began Sept. 1, total volume of 450 million bushels is 36% lower year-over-year.

Mexico was the No. 1 destination for export inspections last week, with 9.2 million bushels, closely followed by Colombia, with 7.9 million bushels. Other top destinations included Peru (6.2 million bushels), South Korea (5.3 million bushels) and Japan (3.0 million bushels).

Soybean export inspections, at 43.5 million bushels, landed on the high end of an average trade guess that ranged between 36 million and 47 million bushels. That was slightly below the prior week’s tally of 44.5 million bushels, and moderately behind weekly totals from a year ago (54 million bushels). The 2017/18 marketing year, which began Sept. 1, has seen a total of 1.087 billion bushels in soybean export inspections – about 14% lower year-over-year.

China was the runaway No. 1 destination for soybean export inspections last week (as it often is), with 29.8 million bushels. Other top destinations included Germany (3.1 million bushels), Spain (2.6 million bushels), Iran (2.4 million bushels) and Mexico (2.0 million bushels).

Wheat export inspections posted a meager total of 8.6 million bushels, but that stayed within the range of the average trade guess of 7 million to 14 million bushels. The amount couldn’t keep pace with the prior week’s total of 10.1 million bushels, nor did it match the volume from this week a year ago, at 9.7 million bushels. The 2017/18 marketing year, which began June 1, has seen a total of 543 million bushels in wheat export inspections so far, which is 6.5% lower year-over-year. 

Wheat’s top export inspection destinations for the week drew from diverse geographies that included Iraq (1.9 million bushels), Nigeria (1.3 million bushels), Colombia (1.0 million bushels), the Philippines (0.8 million bushels) and Djibouti (0.6 million bushels).