The weekly US Export Sales Report was released Thursday morning for the week ending October 22nd.
In the report, corn sales were excellent at 2.24 million metric tons ? up 23 percent from the previous week and 56 percent from the prior four-week average ? while soybean exports came in neutral at 1.62 million metric tons ? down 27 percent from last week. Commodities broker Mike Lung with Allendale says corn and wheat came in well above the expected range this week.
?China across the board was a buyer in these markets,? Lung said. ?It?s good to continue to see this buying out of China. The demand pull that we?ve seen that has rallied these markets, we?re still seeing that continue even going into this November time frame where we start to become less competitive. That is a great sign for the demand pull we?ve been seeing out of this market.?
Lung says the majority of the soybean sales came from China as the country purchased 1.07 million metric tons on the week.
?Over half of China?s full (soybean) purchase was switched from unknown destinations,? Lung said. ?When we see everyone talking about how ?unknown picked up in a flash sale and it has to be China? this is the reason you keep getting that assumption because they do come in here and have unknown purchases all the time that get switched back over to China once we see the export sales report come out.?
Lung offers a few pieces of advice for growers moving forward.
?If you don?t have cash sales on the book, the market is telling you with an inversion that you should be making some cash sales there,? Lung said. ?Corn is probably the same look. We saw $4.20 and we don?t spend a lot of time above that mark when we get up there. So, it could be a good time to be making sales there as well with a lack of carry in the market.?
The next US Export Sales Report will be released on Thursday, November 5th.
