In this week’s HOT TAKE:
What’s HOT: Chocolate!, milo, NOPA crush & the forecast
What’s NOT: last week’s weather, ice cold ethanol production, ICE ICE BABY & China’s declining birth rate
HOT Nuggets: ADM is in HOT water & China+corn remains a HOT topic
What’s HOT
HOT Chocolate!
March ICE NY cocoa futures hit a new 46-year high yesterday, rallying sharply on tight global supplies.
The Ivory Coast, home to more than 40% of the world’s cocoa production, saw a 37% decrease in farmer shipments year-on-year from October 1 until present, fanning the flames in what has already been an unprecedented rally.
As I mentioned over the weekend - China has been on a corn importing spree.
Corn isn’t the only feedgrain that has seen an uptick in interest from China though, as everyone’s favorite itchy alternative to corn: milo (aka sorghum) has had a flurry of recent purchases too.
The US sold China a whopping 199tmt (7.8mbu) of milo in the week ending Jan 5, bringing marketing year commitments to 3.9mmt (154mbu) - more than 10X commitments this time, one year ago.
Current purchase commitments from the U.S. alone are already more than 50% of the 7.7mmt USDA is currently estimating China will import during the entire marketing year…
Seems to be a recurring theme here…
Moving on to beans - December NOPA crush hit a record 195.3 million bushels, smashing previous records.
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