Markets have gone without major reports, as well as weekly and daily updates from the US Department of Agriculture, since Dec. 22. The timing has been especially inconvenient as traders have been trying to track US exports to China as the two countries work toward a trade deal. USDA and other government data will get back on schedule in the coming days and weeks, but the shutdown could resume on Feb. 15 if the dispute over US President Donald Trump's demand for border wall funding is unresolved. The data flow would once again be choked off, and it may happen before some previously delayed data is published.
The funding lapse forced USDA to postpone a slew of reports due on Jan. 11. USDA officials on Monday confirmed that some of those will be published on Feb. 8, the original release date for the February world supply and demand report, due at noon EST (1700 GMT). The additional Feb. 8 reports will include quarterly grain stocks, final US corn and soyabean production and winter wheat seedings, but the January world supply and demand report has been canceled.
Reuters had collected trade estimates for all the pertinent Jan. 11 items, and it is unlikely that analysts will be re-polled. However, new polls will be available in the coming days for the February world supply and demand report. Some of the key expectations from last month include reduced US corn and soyabean harvests, the fewest US winter wheat acres in over a century, a year-on-year drawdown in Dec. 1 US corn stocks, and the trimming of Brazil's soyabean crop.
Although USDA has already rescheduled the major reports, market participants have yet to hear about how some other data sets will resume and be backfilled. This includes items such as export sales and monthly US wheat conditions. The 2013 government shutdown lasted 16 days and canceled the October world supply and demand report. Offices reopened on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013.
USDA issued export sales that Friday and the following Thursday morning at the normal time, but those two reports only covered the two weeks ended Oct. 3. It was not until Oct. 31 that export sales information caught up to the normal pace, and that release contained three weeks of data all at once. The last set of official export sales from USDA covered the week ended Dec. 13. However, the agency flashed a corn sale to South Korea on Tuesday morning, the first such announcement since the shutdown ended.
USDA's export sales office on Tuesday afternoon told Reuters that it will have a release schedule "as soon as possible." As of late Tuesday there were rumblings in the market that it will be similar to the 2013 process, and that it may not be until later in February that data is fully caught up. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has not published its Commitment of Traders report since before the year-end holidays, as the latest data covers the week ended Dec. 18. Industry participants closely watch this for information on both commercial and noncommercial traders' positions in Chicago Board of Trade futures and options.
CFTC on Tuesday announced plans to fill in missing weeks of COT data, which would have the first missing week published this Friday, and then every Tuesday and Friday until the data is current. Extrapolating that out would suggest that the COT data will not be fully updated until March 8, assuming the government does not shut down again. In 2013, CFTC spent nearly three weeks clearing the backlog. The pace did not return to normal until Nov. 8 that year.
Official November export data from the US Census Bureau was also missed at the beginning of January, and a new release date has yet to be announced. The website was restored as of early Monday, and it showed a note that the December data will be available Feb. 5. The absence of routine USDA information may have supported crop prices, especially in a relatively well-supplied market. The United States has a soyabean glut though futures prices do not reflect that.
Commodity funds likely remain firmly optimistic in corn and are flirting with bullish bets in both soyabeans and wheat. CBOT corn, wheat and soya futures have also been trading in a historically tight range for January. It has probably been helpful that the USDA has been unable to remind traders since early November just how inundated the United States is with soyabeans. The agency's latest peg for 2018-19 bean carryout is 955 million bushels, towering over the previous record of 574 million.
Industry estimates of the Brazilian soyabean crop have moved well below USDA's last target of 122 million tonnes, which has also helped bolster soyabean futures. However, expectations remain lofty for the country's second corn crop, and Argentina is poised to sharply rebound from 2018's drought-stricken corn and bean harvests. CBOT futures, particularly for soyabeans, have been supported by the idea that a permanent US-China trade deal is imminent. However, some handshakes and signatures will not immediately vaporize several million bushels of soyabeans from the US balance sheet.
The most-active 2019 soyabean spreads (March-May, May-July, July-November) are at the lowest, most negative levels in at least a decade. This suggests the current oversupply is priced in to the market, but uncertainty persists over how the scenario will play out throughout the year. New-crop November beans have risen 2.5 percent so far this year and prices are similar to those of 2015 and well above the same period in 2016.