@sdelsad/commodity-desk-daily 1.0.24 → 1.0.26

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- SOFT COMMODITY TRADING
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- Episode 07 · Tuesday 18 August 2026 · 10 min 15
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-
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- WASDE and Building a Balance Sheet
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- The line nobody measures moves about ten times faster than the crop.
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-
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- Listen: https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@sdelsad/commodity-desk-daily@1.0.20/ep07.mp3
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- Read online: https://storage.googleapis.com/podcast-audio-2647223968/commodity-desk-daily/ep07.html
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-
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- MARKET PULSE
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- ============
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-
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- Monday belonged to soybeans, and they took it on demand rather than supply.
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-
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- Commodity Contract Price Change
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- ----------------------------------------
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- Corn Sep (CBOT) 465 c/bu +6¢
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- Corn Dec (CBOT) 489½ c/bu +6¼¢
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- Soybeans Sep (CBOT) 1201 c/bu +23¼¢
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- Soybeans Nov (CBOT) 1216 c/bu +23½¢
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- Wheat HRW Sep (KC) 758¾ c/bu +4½¢
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-
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- Monday's session belonged to the soybean complex, which added better than
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- 1¾%. Chicago soft red wheat was the exception, giving back part of a week in
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- which it had gained 35 cents. Kansas City held its bid.
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-
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- Two things did the buying. China took another 136,000 t of US soybeans. And
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- the crop split in two: the northwestern belt is dry, the eastern belt has
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- had too much rain. Monday afternoon's condition ratings had corn at 60% good
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- to excellent and soybeans at 61%, each a point lower on the week, with
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- soybeans seven points below where they stood a year ago. Corn is 76% at
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- dough and 4% mature, running ahead of the five-year average. The bean crop
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- is 85% setting pods.
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-
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- The geopolitical read: the buyer's clock. Chinese purchases of new-crop US
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- soybeans have been running far ahead of anything that has actually sailed.
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- Vessel data through late July put US-to-China departures at roughly 11,000
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- t/day on a seven-day average — close to nothing against commitments running
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- into the millions of tonnes. That gap is an instrument, not an accident. A
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- commitment is a promise on a balance sheet. A loading is a fact on a vessel.
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- The buyer decides when one becomes the other, and that timing is worth more
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- than the price paid. It also lands on exactly one line of today's subject.
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-
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- [chart] Corn led the week, beans closed on Monday — Both jumped on the 12
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- August WASDE and neither gave it back. Corn has led since the
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- report, but Monday belonged to beans, which added 2.0% against
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- corn's 1.3% on Chinese buying and a dry northwestern belt. — CBOT
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- settlements, 11–17 August 2026, from daily market wraps. —
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- https://storage.googleapis.com/podcast-audio-2647223968/commodity-
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- desk-daily/ep07_chart1.png
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-
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- * A balance sheet is not a forecast. It is an accounting identity that has
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- to close, and ending stocks is the line that closes it.
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-
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- * Production is roughly ten times the size of US corn ending stocks, so a
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- 1% error in the crop is a 10% error in the carryout. Work that ratio out
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- for every commodity you trade — it is different for each one.
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-
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- * Stocks-to-use maps to price on a curve, not a line. The same two-bushel
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- yield move is worth almost nothing at 15% and an enormous amount at 9%.
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-
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- * Feed and residual is a residual inside a residual. When it moves, it is
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- telling you about livestock or telling you the crop was never the size
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- they said it was.
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-
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- * Analysts converge on supply and diverge on demand, because supply is
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- surveyed and demand is inferred. That is why pre-report positions live
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- in spreads.
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-
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- * The market does not price the yield. It prices the carryout, and area,
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- demand and carry-in can each pay for a bad yield.
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-
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- Term Meaning
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- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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- Balance sheet (S&D) The one-page supply and demand statement for a crop
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- and a marketing year, which must close
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- Marketing year The crop's own accounting year — September to August
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- for US corn and soybeans, June to May for US wheat
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- Carryout Ending stocks, spoken as a single word on the desk
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- Total supply Carry-in plus production plus imports, the top block
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- of the sheet
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- Total use Domestic use plus exports, the bottom block
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- Feed and residual The inferred demand line that absorbs both livestock
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- feeding and every measurement error in the sheet
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- New crop / old crop The marketing year about to begin versus the one
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- ending, priced by different contract months
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- Trade average The mean of analysts' pre-report estimates, published
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- in advance, and therefore what is already in the
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- price
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- Whisper number The expectation the market actually trades, which can
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- sit away from the published trade average
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- Crop Production The NASS report published alongside WASDE, carrying
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- the survey-based yield and area
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- Grain Stocks The quarterly survey of physical inventories, from
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- which feed and residual is backed out
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- NASS USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, the
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- body that runs the surveys behind the numbers
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- Implied disappearance Use derived by subtraction rather than measurement,
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- the technique behind the residual lines
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-
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-
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- CONVERSION DRILL 7 OF 12 — MILLIMETRES ↔ INCHES OF RAIN
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- =======================================================
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-
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- Rule: 1 inch = 25.4 mm
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-
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- Fast method: inches → mm: ×25 (×100 then ÷4). mm → inches: ÷25 (÷100 then
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- ×4).
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-
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- * "1 to 3 inches across the Midwest" → 25 to 75 mm
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-
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- * 0.5 inch → 13 mm
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-
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- * 40 mm → 1.6 inches
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-
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- Why it matters: rainfall forecasts drive grain prices, and the two systems
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- appear in the same conversation constantly.
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-
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-
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- QUIZ
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- ====
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-
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- Q1. Build one. A desk runs its own 2026/27 US corn sheet with carry-in of
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- 1.945 bn bu, imports of 25 m bu and harvested area of 88.6 m acres, but uses
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- its own yield of 179.0 bu/ac. It carries domestic use at 13.100 bn and
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- exports at 3.350 bn. Compute production, total supply, ending stocks and
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- stocks-to-use. Then compare the percentage gap between the desk's carryout
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- and USDA's 1.653 bn with the percentage gap between the two yields, and
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- explain the difference.
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-
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- Q2. The quarterly Grain Stocks survey lands 90 m bu below what the trade had
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- modelled, with no change to production or exports. Which line absorbs it,
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- what are the two competing stories for why, and how would you use the
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- futures curve rather than the flat price to work out which story the market
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- believes?
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-
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- Q3. Going into 12 August the trade carried new-crop corn carryout at roughly
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- 1.725 bn bu. USDA printed 1.653 bn. December corn rose 20¼¢ on the day and
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- closed Monday 17 August at 489½, above its report-day close. Explain why
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- "the report was bullish and the market went up" is a lazy reading of those
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- three sessions, and state precisely what a trader had to be right about to
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- still be paid on Monday.
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-
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- Q4. Ep 6 said corn's demand curve has steps in it. USDA carries corn exports
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- at 3.275 bn bu and domestic use at 13.055 bn. Suppose a rally takes December
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- corn from 489½ to 560 c/bu and nothing else changes. Name the two demand
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- lines that respond first and the direction each moves. Then explain why a
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- balance sheet that leaves demand untouched after a 70-cent rally is
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- internally inconsistent.
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-
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- Q5. Ep 6 taught that a weather premium decays on the calendar rather than on
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- the forecast. It is 17 August. Corn is 76% at dough and 4% mature. Soybeans
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- are 85% setting pods and rated seven points below last year. A trader wants
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- to be long the weather. What is actually left to be long of in each crop,
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- which would you rather own, and how does Monday's tape support the answer?
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-
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- Q6. Ep 4 established that risk passes at loading under FOB, CFR and CIF
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- alike. You have sold 60,000 t of beans CFR Qingdao. The vessel is three days
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- late arriving after a typhoon diversion, and your buyer's letter of credit
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- expires in four days. Separate the voyage risk from the documentary risk,
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- say who carries each, and identify which of the two actually threatens your
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- P&L.
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-
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- Q7. Ep 4 priced three days of demurrage at $24,000/day as 11% of a $660k
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- margin. Do it in the other unit. A 60,000 t soybean cargo is valued off
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- Monday's November board of 1216 c/bu, and demurrage runs three days at
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- $26,500/day. Convert the cargo to bushels and dollars, then express the
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- demurrage in cents per bushel and as a percentage of cargo value. Why do
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- desks insist on the cents-per-bushel version?
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-
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- Q8 — Conversion drill. Over the weekend an eastern Corn Belt station
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- recorded 82 mm of rain, while a western Kansas station is forecast 0.35 inch
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- for the week ahead. Convert each figure into the other scale. Then say which
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- of the two matters more for the balance sheet that moved this week, and name
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- the line it lands on.
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-
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-
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- ============================================================================
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- SOLUTIONS BELOW — ANSWER FIRST
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- ============================================================================
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- SOLUTIONS
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- =========
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- A1. The arithmetic first.
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- Line Desk USDA (Aug)
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- ---------------------------------
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- Carry-in 1,945 1,945
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- Production 15,859 16,013
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- Imports 25 25
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- Total supply 17,829 17,983
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- Domestic use 13,100 13,055
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- Exports 3,350 3,275
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- Total use 16,450 16,330
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- Ending stocks 1,379 1,653
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- Stocks-to-use 8.4% 10.1%
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-
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- All figures in million bushels. Production is 88.6 × 179.0 = 15,859. (USDA's
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- published 16,013 is about 3 m bu above 88.6 × 180.7 — rounding in the
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- acreage and yield they print. Worth noticing the first time you try to
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- rebuild a published sheet and cannot make it tie.)
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-
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- Now the comparison the question is really asking for. The yields differ by
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- 1.7 bu, or 0.94%. The carryouts differ by 274 m bu, or 16.6%. That is a
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- factor of roughly eighteen, not ten, and the extra leverage comes from the
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- demand side: the desk is carrying 120 m bu more use than USDA. Decomposed,
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- the 274 is 154 m of yield-and-rounding and 120 m of demand. The trap the
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- question sets is the assumption that a carryout gap is a crop-view gap. Most
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- of the time it is half a crop view and half a demand view, and only one of
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- those two halves gets discussed on television.
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-
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- A2. Feed and residual absorbs it, and ending stocks falls 90 m bu — from
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- 1.653 to 1.563 bn, taking stocks-to-use from 10.1% to 9.6%. Nothing else in
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- the sheet is allowed to move, because feed and residual is the line derived
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- by subtraction.
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-
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- The two stories:
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-
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- 1. Real demand. Livestock ate more than modelled — bigger herds, cheaper
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- corn, better rations. This is a genuine tightening and it should
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- persist into the next quarter.
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-
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- 2. Phantom supply. The crop was never as big as printed. The stocks survey
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- is measuring physical inventory, so if it comes in light, either use
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- was higher or production was overstated. A production overstatement
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- gets revealed slowly, through the residual, quarter by quarter.
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-
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- The curve tells you which one the market believes. If the trade takes it as
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- real, present demand is tighter now: the nearby month bids relative to the
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- deferred, spreads firm, and a carry market flattens or inverts. That is bull
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- spreading, and it is a statement about physical availability. If the trade
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- takes it as a statistical artefact likely to be revised away, flat price
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- wobbles on the headline and the spreads do not move — the curve is saying
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- nobody is short of corn today. Flat price reacts to news. Spreads react to
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- grain. A move in one without the other is the market telling you how much it
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- believes.
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-
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- A3. The surprise was 72 m bu, not the 159 m bu that the 1.8 bu/ac yield miss
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- implies on 88.6 m acres. Half of it was absorbed on the way down the page by
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- higher area and higher exports. In stocks-to-use terms the trade went in at
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- 1,725 ÷ 16,330 ≈ 10.6% and got 10.1% — about half a point of tightening.
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- That is what the 20¼¢ paid for, and it is a reasonable price for it.
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-
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- What happened afterwards was a different trade. Corn did not hold its gain
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- and then add another six cents on Monday because of the report. It did so
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- because Black Sea export capacity stayed impaired, because the eastern belt
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- turned too wet, and because the whole complex was being pulled up by
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- soybeans on Chinese demand. None of that was in the WASDE.
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-
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- So a trader long into the print was paid twice, for two separate reasons,
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- and needed to be right about both to still be there on Monday. Being right
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- about the report bought about a day. Staying long required an independent
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- view on export capacity and August weather. The lazy reading — "bullish
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- report, market up" — conflates an event that resolved in ninety seconds with
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- a trend that has been running for two weeks. The discipline is to book the
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- event P&L, then re-underwrite the position on the trend as a fresh decision.
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- A4. Exports fall, and the ethanol grind inside domestic use falls. Both are
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- price-elastic on a timescale of weeks.
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- * Exports are the fastest. US corn competes with Brazilian, Argentine and
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- Ukrainian corn at destination. A 70¢ rally is about $27.50/t; the buyer
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- simply calls another origin. This is ep 5's flow substitution, running
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- on the demand line instead of the supply line.
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-
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- * Ethanol grind is a margin, not a preference. The plant buys corn and
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- sells ethanol and distillers grains. Corn up 70¢ with ethanol unchanged
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- compresses the crush, and marginal plants slow down. Demand stops
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- appearing at the bid.
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-
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- Feed is the third lever but the slowest and, right now, the furthest away:
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- ep 6 put Chicago wheat about $54/t above its feed-switch level, so the
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- substitution bid is nowhere near being triggered.
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- The inconsistency is this. A balance sheet is a set of quantities at an
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- assumed price. If you tighten stocks and let price rise, you must also let
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- the demand lines respond, or you are counting the tightening twice. That
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- feedback is why carryout estimates converge rather than diverge: tighter
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- stocks lift price, higher price rations demand, rationed demand rebuilds
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- stocks. Rationing is not a metaphor — it is the arithmetic by which the
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- sheet closes at a higher price. The analyst's edge sits almost entirely in
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- how fast and how far they think that response runs.
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- A5. For corn, very little is left. Pollination determines ear count and it
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- is long finished; 76% dough and 4% mature means kernel number is set and the
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- crop is filling. What remains is test weight, late-season disease, and an
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- early frost risk that is still weeks away and low-probability. The weather
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- premium has largely decayed, exactly as ep 6 described, and it decayed
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- whether or not the forecast improved.
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- For soybeans, the crop is genuinely still open. Beans set pods and fill seed
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- through August, so August rainfall and August heat still move the yield.
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- With 85% setting pods, a rating of 61% good to excellent and seven points of
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- deterioration against last year, there is a real distribution left to price.
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- You would rather own the beans — and Monday's tape is the evidence: beans
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- +23½¢ against corn +6¼¢ on the same weather map. The sharper version of the
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- answer is that you would rather own optionality on beans than futures,
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- because the same decay clock that has already emptied the corn premium is
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- running on the bean premium too, and it accelerates from early September. A
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- long call spread pays for the distribution without paying carry to the
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- calendar.
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- A6. Two different risks, and the question is whether you can tell them apart
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- under pressure.
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- * Voyage risk passed to the buyer at the ship's rail in Santos. A typhoon
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- diversion mid-ocean is the buyer's risk of loss, not yours. Under CFR
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- you contracted the freight, so a late vessel is your dispute with the
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- carrier under the charter party — but it does not move cargo risk back
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- onto your book.
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-
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- * Documentary risk is entirely yours, and it is the live one. A letter of
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- credit is a bank's undertaking to pay against conforming documents
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- presented before expiry. Miss the expiry and the undertaking lapses. You
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- are then an unsecured creditor of the buyer, holding a cargo already at
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- their risk, in a market where they may prefer to renegotiate.
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-
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- The documentary risk is what threatens the P&L. Nothing has happened to the
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- beans. The practical moves are to request an L/C amendment extending expiry
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- and the latest shipment date before it lapses rather than after, to present
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- documents early if the bill of lading and quality certificate are already in
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- hand, or to ship documents against a letter of indemnity if originals are
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- chasing the vessel. Ep 4's point restated: the cargo is fine, and the paper
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- is what pays.
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- A7. Convert first. 60,000 t × 36.744 bu/t = 2,204,640 bu. At 1216 c/bu the
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- cargo is worth $26.81 m.
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-
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- Line Value
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- -------------------------------------------
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- Cargo 2,204,640 bu
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- Cargo value at 1216 c/bu $26,808,422
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- Demurrage, 3 days × $26,500 $79,500
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- Demurrage in c/bu 3.6 c/bu
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- Demurrage as % of cargo value 0.30%
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- Desks quote it in cents per bushel because that is the same unit as the
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- margin. A cargo bought at "November minus 20" and hit with 3.6 cents of
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- demurrage was really bought at minus 23.6. In dollars, $79,500 against $26.8
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- m looks like a rounding error and gets waved through. In cents per bushel it
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- sits next to the differential that the entire trade was argued over, and 3.6
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- cents is a fifth of the twenty. Execution costs only become visible when
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- they are expressed in the unit the trader negotiates in — which is why the
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- execution desk reports in cents, not in invoices.
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- A8 — Conversion drill answer. 82 mm ÷ 25.4 = 3.23 inches. 0.35 inch × 25.4 =
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- 8.9 mm. The fast method gets you close enough to trade on: 82 ÷ 100 × 4 =
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- 3.28, and 0.35 × 100 ÷ 4 = 8.75.
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- The 82 mm is the number that matters this week. Excessive rain across the
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- eastern Corn Belt in mid-August, with corn 76% at dough and beans 85%
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- setting pods, brings lodging and disease pressure into crops that are
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- filling, and it is behind the one-point slip in both condition ratings on
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- Monday. It lands on the yield term of production, on the supply side of the
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- 2026/27 sheet.
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-
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- The 8.9 mm in western Kansas is a soil-moisture story for hard red winter
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- seeding in September. It reaches a balance sheet too — but the 2027/28 one,
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- through planted area and abandonment. Same week, two rainfall figures, two
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- different marketing years. Keeping them apart is most of the skill.
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- THE EPISODE, IN WRITING
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- =======================
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- The object every grain desk argues about
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- ----------------------------------------
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- A balance sheet is one page. Supply on top, demand underneath, and what is
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- left over at the bottom. It is not a forecast and it is not a model. It is
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- an accounting identity, and it has to close.
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- Supply is three lines.
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- Line What it is
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- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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- Carry-in What was still in store when the previous marketing year ended
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- Production Harvested acres × yield per harvested acre
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- Imports For US corn, a rounding error
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- Two things in that table are quietly load-bearing. A marketing year is the
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- crop's own calendar, not the accountant's: US corn and soybeans run
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- September to August, US wheat June to May. And production uses harvested
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- acres, not planted. Around 8 million planted US corn acres never get cut for
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- grain in a normal year.
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- Demand is four lines: feed and residual, ethanol, food/seed/industrial, and
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- exports. Then ending stocks, which is total supply minus total use.
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- Ending stocks is not measured. It is what is left.
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- Building the real one
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- ---------------------
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- The August numbers, in million bushels.
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- 2026/27 US corn
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- -----------------------------------------------------
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- Carry-in 1,945
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- Production (88.6 m ac × 180.7 bu/ac) 16,013
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- Imports 25
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- Total supply 17,983
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- Domestic use 13,055
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- Exports 3,275
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- Total use 16,330
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- Ending stocks 1,653
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- Stocks-to-use 10.1%
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- [chart] US corn 2026/27, supply down to carryout — Ending stocks is the
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- difference between two numbers that are both around sixteen billion.
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- That is what makes it move so much. — USDA WASDE, 12 August 2026.
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- Carry-in is the figure implied by the published stocks and use. —
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- https://storage.googleapis.com/podcast-audio-2647223968/commodity-
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- desk-daily/ep07_chart2.png
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-
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- Stocks-to-use is the number a desk quotes out loud, because a bushel figure
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- means nothing without the size of the market next to it. 1,653 over 16,330
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- is 10.1%.
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- Why the bottom line is a lever
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- ------------------------------
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- Look at the size of the terms. Production is 16.0 billion bushels. Ending
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- stocks is 1.65 billion. Production is roughly ten times the line it feeds.
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- So a 1% error in the crop is a 10% error in the carryout.
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- Take the yield down two bushels, from 180.7 to 178.7. That is 1.1% on the
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- yield line. On 88.6 million harvested acres it is 177 million bushels of
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- production.
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- Yield (bu/ac) Production Ending stocks Stocks-to-use
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- -------------------------------------------------------
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- 178.7 15,836 1,476 9.0%
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- 180.7 (USDA) 16,013 1,653 10.1%
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- 182.7 16,190 1,830 11.2%
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- [chart] Two bushels of yield, eleven percent of carryout — A 1.1% change in
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- the yield input moves ending stocks by about 11% in either
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- direction. The balance sheet is a lever, and the fulcrum sits very
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- close to the crop. — Calculated on the August 2026 WASDE sheet,
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- holding demand and area constant at 88.6 m harvested acres. —
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- https://storage.googleapis.com/podcast-audio-2647223968/commodity-
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- desk-daily/ep07_chart3.png
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- Eleven percent either way, out of a one percent input. That is the whole
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- reason a yield estimate is worth arguing about for six weeks.
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- A warning about that table, though. It holds demand fixed, and a real
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- balance sheet does not. A sheet is a set of quantities at an assumed price.
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- Cut the crop, lift the price, and exports and ethanol grind both start to
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- fall — which rebuilds part of the stocks you just removed. Rationing is not
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- a metaphor. It is the arithmetic by which the sheet closes at a higher
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- price.
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- Stocks-to-use bends
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- -------------------
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- The relationship between stocks-to-use and price is not a line. It is a
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- curve, and it bends.
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- From 15% down to 12%, price barely notices. There is plenty of corn either
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- way and the marginal bushel is not scarce. From 10% down to 8%, price goes
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- vertical, because at that level somebody has to be rationed out of the
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- market and price is the only tool that does it.
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-
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- Which means the same two-bushel yield move is worth almost nothing at a
497
- comfortable stocks-to-use and an enormous amount at a tight one. At 10.1%,
498
- corn is close enough to the bend that the market is paying attention — and
499
- that, rather than the headline figure, is why an August yield print gets
500
- traded as hard as it does.
501
-
502
- The line that hides the sins
503
- ----------------------------
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-
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- Feed and residual. Two words, and the second is doing real work.
506
-
507
- Nobody counts the corn a hog eats. Feed use is inferred: take the quarterly
508
- Grain Stocks survey, subtract everything that can actually be measured, and
509
- whatever remains gets called feed and residual. So every measurement error
510
- in the sheet — in production, in exports, in the survey itself — lands in
511
- that one line.
512
-
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- Which means that when feed and residual moves, sometimes it is telling you
514
- about livestock, and sometimes it is telling you the crop was never the size
515
- they said it was.
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-
517
- Ending stocks is a residual. Feed and residual is a residual sitting inside
518
- it.
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-
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- Where analysts actually disagree
521
- --------------------------------
522
-
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- Here is what the argument sounds like the morning before a report.
524
-
525
- | Analyst: I have got carryout at one six eight.
526
-
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- | Trader: On what yield?
528
-
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- | Analyst: One eighty-one. Same as theirs.
530
-
531
- | Trader: Then where are we actually different?
532
-
533
- | Analyst: Exports. You are carrying three three, I am at three two.
534
-
535
- | Trader: A hundred million bushels of Mexico. That is not a crop view,
536
- | that is a freight view.
537
-
538
- Notice where the disagreement sat. Not the yield — they agreed on the yield.
539
-
540
- That is the pattern, and it has a structural cause. Supply is surveyed.
541
- Fields are walked, ears are counted, acres are measured from satellite
542
- imagery and from farm programme filings. Two analysts working from the same
543
- surveys land close together.
544
-
545
- Demand is inferred. Nobody surveys a feedlot's intentions. Export
546
- commitments are known, but shipment timing is a decision somebody else has
547
- not made yet — which is precisely what the Chinese soybean programme is
548
- demonstrating this month.
549
-
550
- So two competent analysts converge on supply and diverge on demand. Which is
551
- why the interesting positions ahead of a report are rarely outright: a
552
- demand view is a view about when and where, and that lives in spreads.
553
-
554
- Trading the surprise, not the number
555
- ------------------------------------
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-
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- On 12 August USDA cut the corn yield to 180.7 bu/ac. The trade average going
558
- in was 182.5. So the yield surprise was 1.8 bushels — 159 million bushels of
559
- production, gone.
560
-
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- And the carryout printed only about 72 million below what the trade was
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- carrying.
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-
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- Line Effect
565
- -------------------------------------------------
566
- Yield surprise, −1.8 bu/ac × 88.6 m ac −159 m bu
567
- Area and demand revisions +87 m bu
568
- Carryout surprise −72 m bu
569
-
570
- Half the surprise disappeared on the way down the page. This is the trap
571
- that catches anyone who trades one line: the market does not price the
572
- yield, it prices the carryout, and the carryout has an area term, a demand
573
- term and a carry-in term, any of which can pay for a bad yield.
574
-
575
- December corn added roughly 20¼¢ on the print. It then did not hand it back
576
- — it closed Monday 17 August at 489½, above its report-day close. But that
577
- was a different trade. The follow-through came from impaired Black Sea
578
- export capacity, a soaked eastern belt and a soybean complex pulling the
579
- whole board higher on Chinese buying. None of it was in the report.
580
-
581
- Which is the last honest thing to say about report days. The number is the
582
- shock. The market is what happens over the next three weeks, and it needs
583
- its own reason.
584
-
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-
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- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
587
- Soft Commodity Trading — a daily briefing on physical commodity trading.
588
-
589
- GLOSSARY
590
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591
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592
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