By Kirk Maltais


Weekly export sales of U.S. corn reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture arrived higher than expected by grain traders.

For the week ended Jan. 12, export sales of corn totaled 1.22 million metric tons across the 2022/23 and 2023/24 marketing years, up considerably from last week and exceeding the high end of forecasts from traders surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. The traders had forecast sales to land anywhere from 275,000 tons to 800,000 tons.

Japan was the lead buyer of U.S. corn for the week, followed by Mexico, South Korea and China.

Sales of wheat and soybeans fell on the high end of trader expectations, with wheat sales totaling 473,100 tons and soybean sales totaling 986,200 tons for the week. Both wheat and soybean sales are up from last week.

Grain futures are mixed in premarket trading Friday on the CBOT, with most-active corn futures down 0.3%, soybeans up 0.1% and wheat down 0.3%.


To see related data, search "U.S. Export Sales: Weekly Sales Totals" in Dow Jones NewsPlus.


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


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-20-23 0923ET