Weekly Grain Movement – Corn maintains bullish paceWeekly Grain Movement – Corn maintains bullish pace

USDA’s latest grain export inspection report, covering the week ending May 7, had mixed but mostly bullish news for traders this morning. Corn volume was down fractionally from a week ago but still exceeded analyst estimates. Soybeans climbed moderately above the prior week’s tally and stayed in the middle of trade guesses. Wheat underperformed, meantime, spilling moderately below last week’s volume and tumbling below all trade estimates.

Corn continues to lead the way in total grain export inspections, notching another 52.5 million bushels last week. That was down a hair from the prior week’s tally but above all trade guesses, which ranged between 35.4 million and 47.2 million bushels. Cumulative totals for the 2019/20 are making up some ground but still remain significantly behind last year’s pace, with 984.7 million bushels.

Mexico (14.6 million) and Japan (13.2 million) were the top two destinations for U.S. corn export inspections last week. South Korea, Colombia and Costa Rica rounded out the top five.

Sorghum export inspections continue to showcase a small but encouraging success story, with another 3.0 million bushels last week. That tally fell significantly week over week, but cumulative totals for the 2019/20 marketing year are more than double the prior year’s pace, with 107.2 million bushels. China has been the predominant buyer so far.

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Soybean export inspections climbed 30% from a week ago to reach 18.2 million bushels. Last week’s total was close to the middle of trade estimates, which ranged between 12.9 million and 25.7 million bushels. Cumulative totals for the 2019/20 marketing year are holding a modest lead over last week’s pace after climbing to 1.263 billion bushels.

No one country dominated U.S. soybean export inspections last week, but China reoccupied the No. 1 position, with 2.8 million bushels, followed narrowly by the Netherlands (2.5 million bushels). Other countries rounding out the top five included Egypt, Mexico and Italy.

Wheat export inspections were lackluster, tumbling 42% week-over-week to land at 12.5 million bushels. Analysts were expecting more robust totals, with trade guesses that ranged between 14.7 million and 23.9 million bushels. The lead over last year’s pace is getting slimmer, but 2019/20 totals are maintaining a 2.7% lead versus a year ago, with 861.2 million bushels.

Japan led all destinations for U.S. wheat export inspections last week, with 2.5 million bushels. Yemen, the Philippines, Mexico and Nigeria rounded out the top five.

Click here to read the entire latest grain export inspection report from USDA.