Weekly Grain Movement – Corn comes through againWeekly Grain Movement – Corn comes through again

USDA’s latest grain export inspection report, out Tuesday morning, showed a mostly positive round of data, with corn and soybeans moving higher week-over-week and landing within the range of trade estimates. Wheat suffered a small setback from a week ago but still stayed within the range of trade guesses for the week ending February 13.

Corn export inspections inched ahead of the prior week’s tally to reach 31.3 million bushels. That total was also on the high end of trade estimates, which ranged from 23.6 million to 31.5 million bushels. But 2019/20 marketing year totals remain at roughly half of last year’s pace, at 484.6 million bushels.

Mexico (10.1 million), Japan (9.2 million) and Colombia (5.3 million) continue to dominate U.S. corn export inspections, as this trio of countries has done often in recent weeks. Central American countries such as Honduras, Guatemala and Panama accounted for the bulk of the remainder.

Wheat export inspections took a modest step back this past week, landing at 18.4 million bushels. That tally was still good enough to land in the middle of trade estimates that ranged between 14.7 million and 22.0 million bushels, however. Cumulative totals for the 2019/20 marketing year are still 12.5% ahead of last year’s pace after reaching 651.5 million bushels.

No single country accounted for a tremendous amount of U.S. wheat export inspections last week, but Mexico led the way with 2.9 million bushels. An Asian block of Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan and Japan rounded out the top five.

Soybean export inspections were for 36.5 million bushels last week, improving 55% week-over-week and landing in the middle of trade estimates that ranged between 25.7 million and 45.9 million bushels. Cumulative totals for 2019/20 remain 19% ahead of last year’s pace, with 1.039 billion bushels.

China’s participation remains muted for now, with the country only accounting for 7.5 million bushels in total U.S. soybean export inspections, falling just behind the No. 1 destination – Mexico – which reached almost 8.0 million bushels last week. Egypt, Bangladesh and Japan rounded out the top five.

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