WASHINGTON (Reuters) — U.S. soybean stocks at the end of the 2013-14 marketing year were much smaller than expected despite an upward revision to last year’s crop, while corn stocks were larger than forecast, government data showed on Tuesday.
The U.S. Agriculture Department’s wheat crop estimate was in line with traders’ expectations while wheat stocks as of Sept. 1 were two percent larger than projected.
In Chicago, corn futures and wheat futures slumped after higher-than-expected stocks while soybeans trimmed losses.
“There’s definitely a bearish slant to (the report). The ending stocks were on the higher end of the range for corn. The wheat stocks number indicates lower-than-expected usage,” said Shawn McCambridge, analyst at Jefferies Bache.
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Soybean stocks ahead of harvest were a razor-thin 92 million bushels, versus the trade guess of 126 million. Indicated usage during June-August was 313 million bushels, up six percent on the year.
USDA raised its estimate of the 2013 soybean crop to 3.358 billion bushels, up 69.2 million bushels. The change was based on analysis of data from several sources, USDA said. Analysts had forecast the crop at 3.362 billion bushels.
The 2013 soybean yield of 44 bushels per acre was up 0.7 bpa from the previous estimate, USDA said.
Quarterly corn stocks have a history of shocking markets but Tuesday’s figure, just 0.4 percent above expectations at 1.236 billion bushels, was not a major surprise.
Even so, stocks were up 50 percent on the year. This, along with the record large 2014 harvest now underway, underlines large U.S. corn supplies, a turnaround after several years of short supplies. CBOT corn futures have made a series of contract lows recently.
Quarterly stocks compare with USDA’s estimates made three weeks ago of 1.181 billion bushels for corn and 130 million bushels of soybeans.
In a companion report, USDA said this year’s wheat crop totaled 2.035 billion bushels, up five million bushels from its previous estimate and just below the analysts’ average guess.
The winter wheat crop was below expectations and the spring wheat crop somewhat larger than expected.
