US soy net export sales beat expectations, wheat and corn fall short

Net US soybean sales hit 1.13 million mt during the week ending March 29, climbing above the upper limit of analysts’ expectations of 1 million mt but still 7% lower than the four-week average, USDA data released Thursday showed.

Most notably, sales to China increased significantly on the week to 137,400 mt, from negligible net sales of 11,052 mt the week before, ahead of the onset of a deteriorating US-China trade dispute.

The majority of the weekly soybean sales, or 610,400 mt, were labelled with unknown destinations, while Bangladesh took 108,300 mt and the Netherlands scooped up 76,300 mt.

Net soybean sales for 2018/19 were reported at 358,200 MT, of which China took the largest cut, 255,000 MT, with the rest labelled with unknown destinations.

US corn sales underperformed and reached just 898,300 mt for the week, below the wide range of 1-1.5 million mt set by market analysts.

That was a 69% reduction week-on-week, and 63% below the four-week average.

South Korea took the largest share of 195,400 mt, while a similar volume headed to Mexico with Japan picking up 135,500 mt.

Wheat sales came to a near standstill in week leading up to March 29, also falling 69% on the week with only 109,000 mt sold, of which Thailand and Chile each took half.

Analysts had anticipated net wheat sales of between 300,000 and 700,000 mt.