Market News & Headlines >> Little Positive News in USDA Report

USDA confirmed trade expectations on Tuesday morning by forecasting that U.S. corn, wheat and soybean stocks would remain ample through 2015/16.

USDA pegged the 2015-16 (September-October) U.S. corn carryout at 1.746 billion bushels, down 105 billion bushels from revised 2014-15 ending stocks, but just 6 million bushels below the average of pre-report trade estimates. Old-crop stocks were revised upward by 24 million bushels to 1.851 billion, just 13 million bushels below the average of trade expectations, due to lower food/seed/industrial usage.

The lower U.S. corn carryout forecast for 2015-16 was mostly due to lower production. U.S. production for 2015 was pegged at 13.630 billion bushels down from the 2014 crop of 14.216 billion on prospective plantings of 88.50 million acres and a national yield of 166.8 bushels per acre.

USDA forecast the U.S. soybean carryout for 2015-16 at 500 million bushels, up 150 million from a revised old-crop carryout of 350 million, and 57 million bushels above the average of trade estimates.  The old-crop carryout was cut by 20 million bushels on a stronger U.S. crush and stronger exports.

U.S. soybean production for 2015-16 was forecast at 3.850 billion bushels, based on prospective plantings of 84.6 million acres and a weather-adjusted trend-line yield of 46.0 bushels per acre.

The 2015-16 U.S. wheat carryout was pegged by USDA at 793 million bushels, up 82 million from a revised 2014-15 carryout and 43 million bushels above the average of trade estimates, due primarily to larger expected U.S. production. USDA boosted its old-crop wheat carryout by 25 million bushels to 709 million due to lower exports.