The weekly U.S. Export Sales Report was released Thursday morning for the week ending August 13th.
In the report, old crop corn sales were 61,600 metric tons ? down 84 percent from the previous week and 63 percent from the prior four-week average ? while new crop corn had net sales of 723,300 metric tons. Old crop soybeans saw net sales reductions of 12,700 metric tons, a marketing-year low. New crop beans came in at 2.5 million metric tons, primarily to China (1.6 MMT).
Commodities broker Greg McBride with Allendale says export sales across the board were mostly neutral for the week.
?Mid-range for beans and upper end of the range for corn, but nothing to really get too excited about,? McBride said. ?China was a big buyer of US beans once again at 1.6 million plus on the bean side, but not much in the way of corn. That will be something to monitor. We?ve gotten through this USDA report and we know we have this damage in Iowa. What does that mean if (China) starts to slow down on those corn purchases to refill those state reserves, and is that going to be an issue as we move forward as we get closer to harvest??
The neutral tone for soybean exports breaks a three-week streak of bullish sales. However, McBride says producers shouldn?t read too much into that.
?I don?t think that was necessarily disappointing,? he said. ?It was still very good sales. You can?t win every single week. We have had very good sales of soybeans here for the last few weeks, especially with our 8 a.m. sales. I think the most disappointing thing today would be the fact we didn?t get an 8 a.m. sales announcement for any soybeans, wheat or corn. That?s a little bit concerning that maybe things are starting to slow down.?
?As we start to move forward,? McBride continued, ?we do know we are going to have a check-in meeting with the Chinese about this ?Phase One? deal to see where we are at. Maybe that will prompt a little more commitment to them to stay up with the purchases.?
The next U.S. Export Sales Report will be released on Thursday, August 27th. McBride?s full interview can be heard below.
