Corn and wheat futures continued to slide on Thursday, while soybeans were buoyed by export demand.
The USDA this morning announced a private export sale of 225,000 tonnes of US soybeans to Pakistan for 2025-26 delivery. It was Pakistan’s largest soybean purchase in nearly three years and comes amid the country’s rising tensions with India. Meanwhile, the USDA’s weekly export sales report this morning showed bookings of old-crop US beans for the week ended May 1 at 376,653 tonnes, in the middle of pre-report trade guesses. Optimism about US-China trade talks this weekend in Switzerland offered support as well. July beans gained 5 ¾ cents to $10.45 and November was 3 cents higher at $10.25.
Corn remained weighed down by good Midwest planting conditions, and ideas that farmers will seed all of their intended 2025 acres. That was more than enough to offset strong export demand. The USDA reported private export sales of 205,000 tonnes to Mexico this morning, with another 115,000 tonnes sold to unknown destinations for old crop. Meanwhile, the export sales report showed a total of 1.662 million tonnes of old-crop corn sales in the week ending May 1, which exceeded analysts’ expectations. July corn eased 1 ¾ cents to $4.47 ½, and December was down 2 cents at $4.38 ¾.
Improving US production prospects and the approaching American winter wheat harvest put pressure on wheat. The export sales report from this morning showed 69,659 tonnes of US wheat sold in the week ending May 1, within trade guesses. July Chicago fell a nickel to $5.29 ¼, May Kansas City lost 4 ¾ cents to $5.24 ¾, and May Minneapolis dropped 2 ¼ cents to $6.00 ¾.
