What Will Be The Top Crop – US-FOREX.US
Corn and soybean prices slipped a day ahead of the impending U.S. crop acreage report. Investors had anticipated a significant reduction to corn crop acreage since weeks of rainy weather drenched U.S. corn regions, delaying the planting period, and farmers were expected to surrender corn fields to soybeans, which can be planted later and require less fertilizer.Improved weather conditions, however, put crop prices under pressure during Monday’s trading session as investors awaited Tuesday’s acreage update from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Corn for September delivery settled down by 7.2 cents to 3.90 a bushel during Monday’s session while soybeans for August delivery shed 6 cents to 11.24 a bushel. Shares of fertilizer companies, meanwhile, closed the session broadly higher with Mosaic
up by 2.59, or 6%, at 45.94 and Potash
up by 2.50, or 2.7%, at 95.60. Monsanto
, a specialty seed and herbicide company, closed ahead by 95 cents, or 1.3%, at 76.20. Crop prices also affect meat producers since corn and soybeans are common ingredients in animal feed. Shares of Sanderson Farms
and Tyson Foods
were down by 3% and 0.5%, at 4.90 and 12.78, respectively, at Monday’s close. Hormel Foods
and Smithfield Foods
meanwhile, were up by 1% and 0.6%, at 34.82 and 13.81, respectively.Even if weather makes corn planting possible, farmers might still opt for soybeans since supply concerns have helped prices surge since the beginning of the year. “We continue to expect a 1 million to 2 million acreage switch away from corn and into soybeans, a factor likely to continue to weigh on the outperformance of old-crop soybeans over new-crop futures,” said Barclays Capital analyst Sudakshina Unnikrishnan.