Bearish Outlook for Corn and Soybeans in July WASDE Update

WASDE update: Bearish numbers for corn and soybeans

The July WASDE was a largely bearish report, particularly for corn and soybeans, with both balances not appearing as tight as the market was expecting. Meanwhile, the global wheat market is set to see another year of tightening.

 

Higher US corn output

The USDA revised up its US corn production estimates by 55m bushels to 15.32bn bushels. This increase was a result of larger acreage, which was largely expected following the USDA’s recent acreage report. While the USDA also lowered its yield estimates for the US corn crop, the market was expecting the agency to be even more aggressive, given the dry weather and relatively poor condition of the corn crop. As a result, 2023/24 ending stock estimates for US corn were increased by 5m bushels to 2,262m bushels, which is above the 2,166m bushels the market was expecting.

Changes to the global corn balance were relatively more neutral. Global ending stocks for corn in 2023/24 were left largely unchanged at 314.1mt. However, this is still above the roughly 312mt the market was expecting. A slight increase in global production estimates for the season (+1.7mt) was largely offset by lower beginning stocks for the marketing year (-1.3mt).

 

Corn supply/demand balance

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