By Kirk Maltais


--Soybeans for March delivery rose 0.9%, to $15.02 1/2 a bushel, on the Chicago Board of Trade on Wednesday, with traders getting in position ahead of tomorrow's export sales report from the USDA and China's return from the Lunar New Year holiday.

--Wheat for March delivery rose 0.9% to $7.41 1/4 a bushel.

--Corn for March delivery fell 0.3% to $6.74 3/4 a bushel.


HIGHLIGHTS


Open Question: Demand was the driving issue in today's trading session, with traders looking ahead to tomorrow's export sales report for hope that the dormancy seen in export demand starts to lift. Grain traders surveyed by The Wall Street Journal forecast corn sales as high as 1.4 million metric tons, and soybean sales as high as 1.26 million tons.

New Round of Unease: While news from the Russia-Ukraine war isn't the driver for trading it once was, market movement can still be influenced by it. CBOT wheat futures caught some support today on news of a Turkish ship being hit by a missile in Kherson, said Arlan Suderman of StoneX in a note. Today, the White House announced that the U.S. would send 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine to help support Ukraine's forces, the WSJ reports.


INSIGHT


Stock Surge: Inventories of ethanol in the U.S. have climbed by nearly 2 million barrels in the past week, the first time since April of last year inventories have been so high. In its latest weekly report, the EIA said ethanol inventories for the week ended Jan. 20 hit 25.1 million barrels. That's up from 23.4 million barrels reported in the previous week, and above the forecasts from analysts surveyed by Dow Jones this week. Analysts surveyed by Dow Jones this week had forecast inventories to land anywhere from 23.2 million barrels to 23.8 million barrels.

Faster Flow: Through the first-half of the 2022/23 marketing year, Algeria was a leading buyer of Russian wheat exports - purchasing 1.1 million metric tons of winter wheat. That's roughly double the amount that Russia imported to Algeria in the previous marketing year, said SovEcon in a note. It's unusual because France is normally Algeria's main grain source, said Andrey Sizov of SovEcon. An increased appetite for cheap Russian wheat among Northern African countries like Algeria may force other world wheat prices to drop in order to be competitive.


AHEAD


--Ethanol producer Valero Energy Corp. will release its fourth-quarter earnings report before the stock market opens on Thursday.

--Archer Daniel Midlands Co. will release its fourth-quarter earnings report at 7 a.m. ET Thursday.

--The USDA will release its weekly export sales report at 8:30 a.m. ET Thursday.


Write to Kirk Maltais at kirk.maltais@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-25-23 1535ET