USDA provided a friendly surprise in its January WASDE and Quarterly Stocks reports released today. Market analysts were leaning towards larger ending stocks figures for both corn and soybeans as it was anticipated usage projections would decline. While both corn and soybean usage did decline mainly in the form of reduced exports, the surprise came due to reduced production. While corn yield did increase by 1.0 bpa up to 173.3 bpa, harvested acres were cut by 1.6 million acres. Instead of increasing, corn ending stocks fell by 15 million bushels down to 1.242 billion bushels.
Soybean yield was reduced by 0.7 bpa down to 49.5 bpa and harvested acres fell by 300,000 acres down to 86.3 million acres. This resulted in 70 million bushels less production. Like corn, instead of increasing, soybean ending stocks were reduced by 10 million bushels down to 210 million bushels.
For further analysis, watch this video from Advance Trading with Brian Basting and Michael Reginelli. The report recap begins at the 1:00 minute mark