USDA’s September Quarterly Grain Stocks report caused major market reaction after USDA raised the soybean stocks number, with one analyst calling the move “unprecedented.” As a result, soybean futures dropped double digits.
USDA’s report showed old crop soybean stocks are now pegged at 256 million bushels. While that number is down 51% from last year, the revision was higher than trade and many analysts expected. The adjustment in carryout came from USDA revising last year’s production up 80 million bushels, moving the yield to 51 bu. per acre.
“The biggest one is another volatile surprise, and probably the biggest surprise was the soybean number. Seeing that carry out grow like it did was kind of unprecedented historically,” Jim McCormick of AgMarket.Net told AgDay’s Clinton Griffiths. “We have a pretty good handle on what we use on beans consumption wise. So, the surprise usually comes on the supply end, and that’s what happened again this year.”
USDA set old crop corn stocks at 1.24 billion bushels, which is down 36% from last year, but also higher than the trade expected. The agency says it was a smaller corn harvest last year, revising production down 71 million bushels, which is the lowest since 2014. That puts last year’s yield at 171.4 bu. per acre, which is down a little more than half a bushel from the previous estimate.
The wheat stocks were a little lower than the market expected, coming in at 1.78 billion bushels, which is down 18% from a year ago. Production came in at 1.64 billion bushels on a smaller hard red winter wheat crop and a slightly smaller spring wheat crop.
Durum wheat yields were the lowest in more than 30 years.
