Corn and soybean futures ended solidly lower on Monday, with both markets undermined by ideas of good Midwest planting progress. Wheat was also weaker
Corn saw the sharpest losses on the day, with traders expecting this afternoon’s USDA crop progress report to show national corn planting at 40% complete as of Sunday, up from 24% a week earlier. Meanwhile, outside of rain for Michigan and Ohio today and tomorrow, forecasts point to mostly dry weather into early next week, which should further accelerate fieldwork. July corn fell 14 ¾ cents to $4.54 ¼, and December dropped 7 ¼ cents to $4.43.
Soybean planting is expected to be shown around 29% complete in the USDA crop progress report, up from 18% a week earlier. A note today from Marex said that anecdotally, “a lot of farmers are already talking about more than half of their beans having been seeded.” July beans dropped 12 ½ cents to $10.45 ¼, and November lost 8 ¼ cents to $10.22 ¼.
Wheat was down with the losses in corn. The crop progress is expected to show a further improvement in the condition of the US winter wheat crop, up 1 point from a week earlier to 50% good to excellent. On the other hand, dryness concerns for the Black Sea crop and in parts of China limited the losses. July Chicago corn was down 11 ¾ cents at $5.31, July Kansas City closed 8 ½ cents lower at $5.32 ¾, and July Minneapolis eased 1 ½ cents to $6.09 ½.
