Are soybean stocks even lower than USDA’s 190m bushel estimate?

News

Are soybean stocks even lower than USDA’s 190m bushel estimate?

USDA has slashed its U.S. soybean ending stocks estimate to 190 million bushels, a seven-year low.

Market analyst Jeff Peterson with Heartland Farm Partners says he was surprised the reduction came strictly from the production side.

“We actually thought it was going to come from the demand side. We really didn’t think we would see much adjustment on the yield, or the production side,” Peterson says. “So to get us down here already, into some tight areas, with making any adjustments on demand—that could get interesting down the road.”

Peterson says actual ending stocks could be even tighter than USDA is estimating.

“Our numbers would have suggested that there could have been another 50 to 70 million bushels in exports that could have been taken out of the numbers, which weren’t taken out of the stocks. So are you down somewhere close to 120? Are you down close to 100 million bushels of ending stocks?”

Peterson thinks both soybeans and corn have more upside price potential, depending on Chinese demand and South America’s crop.