USDA threw some big surprises at the feed grain complex with their Quarterly stocks estimates on corn and wheat. The agency lowered corn stocks down to 988 million bushels, nearly 138 million under the trade guess and wheat was also under estimates at 2.1 billion bushel. Arlan Suderman, Sr. Market Analyst with Waterstreet Solutions says USDA did a better job of separating new crop corn from old stocks and with higher livestock demand that produced the bullish corn number. He says this may have confirmed a low in the corn market.
Wheat quarterly stocks were also under expectations due to higher feed usage at 2.1 billion bushels. As a result wheat prices have not gone high enough to ration prices.
In soybeans USDA pegged quarterly inventories at 169 million bushels, which is surprising. However Suderman says the increase come from a 38 million bushel hike in the 2011 soybean crop. He says soybeans may also be trying to forge a bottom.
