January 2021 USDA Supply & Demand, Grain Stocks, and Winter Wheat Seedings: USDA tightens stocks
The USDA reduced nearly all U.S. numbers below the average trade estimate. Supplies are smaller than traders thought, and markets surged.
The biggest surprise in today?s estimates came in the corn market. The USDA reduced the U.S. 2020 corn yield by 3.8 bushels from their December estimate, taking it down 3.3 bushels from the average trade estimate. U.S. corn production was pegged at 14.182 billion bushels, down from 14.507 billion bushels in December.
U.S. corn carryout was cut 150 million bushels, down to 1.552 billion bushels.
The USDA also reduced the U.S. bean yield by 0.5 bushel/acre down to 50.2 bushels per acre, 0.3 bushels below trade estimates. That pulled U.S. bean production down 35 million bushels from the December estimate and 23 million below trade estimates.
The USDA pegged U.S. soybean carryout at 140 million bushels down from the December estimate of 175 million bushels. This was one of a few estimates that were bigger than the trade expected, their guesses averaged 139 million bushels.
U.S. wheat carryout for the 2020-21 crop was reduced to 836 million bushels, down 26 million bushels from December and 23 million from the average trade guess.
Source: USDA, Reuters, StoneX
In Brazil, the USDA?s production estimates were larger than trade expectations. Brazilian corn production estimate was only cut by 1 million tons to 109 million tons, compared to a trade expectation of 107.7 million tons.
The USDA Brazilian bean production estimate was unchanged from December at 133 million tons, compared to a trade expectation of 131.4 million tons.
The USDA Argentine production estimates were lowered from December, but more in line with the trade estimates than the Brazil numbers.
Source: USDA, Reuters, StoneX
U.S. winter wheat seedings were 5% bigger than last year, totaling 31.99 million acres. That was less than a half a million acres larger than trade expected.
Source: USDA, Reuters, StoneX
As you can see in the table below corn stocks are down sharply from trader expectations and are about the same as last year. Bean stocks are slightly larger and wheat stocks are also down 20 million bushels.
Source: USDA, Reuters, StoneX