Weekly Grain Movement – Corn climbs, soybeans ease lower

Wheat inspections also trend higher week-over-week.

Ben Potter, Senior editor

February 8, 2021

2 Min Read
fotokostic/Thinkstock

The latest batch of grain export inspection data from USDA, out Monday morning and covering the week through February 4, held mostly positive data for traders to digest today. Corn inspections saw moderate week-over-week improvements and exceeded all analyst estimates. Wheat also saw moderate improvements while staying near the middle of trade estimates. Soybeans faced a modest decline from last week, in contrast.

Corn export inspections moved 41% above last week’s tally to reach 62.1 million bushels for the week ending February 4. That also bested all trade guesses, which ranged between 35.4 million and 55.1 million bushels. Cumulative totals for the 2020/21 marketing year are still close to doubling last year’s pace, with 844.5 million bushels.

Japan topped all destinations for U.S. corn export inspections last week, with 12.4 million bushels. Mexico and China followed closely behind, with 12.1 million and 11.3 million bushels, respectively. Colombia and Taiwan filled out the top five.

Sorghum export inspections notched another 7.9 million bushels last week, sliding 19% below the prior week’s tally. The entirety of that grain is bound for China. Cumulative totals for the 2020/21 marketing year are still well ahead of last year’s pace, with 128.6 million bushels.

Soybean export inspections trended 6% lower week-over-week, to 66.2 million bushels. That was still on the upper end of trade guesses, which ranged between

36.7 million and 73.5 million bushels. Cumulative totals for the 2020/21 marketing year have climbed far beyond last year’s pace, reaching 1.807 billion bushels. (Volume had just passed the 1-billion-bushel mark at this time last year.)

China accounted for nearly half of all U.S. soybean export inspections last week, with 32.2 million bushels. The Netherlands, Mexico, Egypt and Vietnam rounded out the top five.

Wheat export inspections saw a moderate week-over-week improvement, moving to 16.2 million bushels. That was in the middle of trade guesses, which ranged between 12.9 million and 20.2 million bushels. Cumulative totals for the 2020/21 marketing year remain slightly behind last year’s pace, with 624.8 million bushels

Mexico was the No. 1 destination for U.S. wheat export inspections last week, with just under 4.0 million bushels. A quartet of Asian nations – the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and China – filled out the top five.

Click here to read through more highlights from USDA’s latest grain export inspection report.

About the Author

Ben Potter

Senior editor, Farm Futures

Senior Editor Ben Potter brings two decades of professional agricultural communications and journalism experience to Farm Futures. He began working in the industry in the highly specific world of southern row crop production. Since that time, he has expanded his knowledge to cover a broad range of topics relevant to agriculture, including agronomy, machinery, technology, business, marketing, politics and weather. He has won several writing awards from the American Agricultural Editors Association, most recently on two features about drones and farmers who operate distilleries as a side business. Ben is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

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