Still Waiting on Export Data

The lack of funding for USDA has resulted in the Weekly Export Sales and any daily export sales notices from being released. That has left markets uncertain in terms of official confirmation of export business that typically would be released by USDA. USDA released the export sales data for the week ended December 13 on December 20. However, the agency has not released the weekly update since that time, meaning any export sales made since December 14 have not been publicly confirmed by USDA. USDA has also not made any daily export sales announcements since the government shutdown began. U.S. exporters are required to report large sales of some U.S. commodities under the daily sales reporting system if they exceed certain thresholds – U.S. exporters are also required to report all large sales activity made in a single day to a single country for certain commodities by 3:00 p.m. (ET) on the business day after a sale is made. Large export sales of certain commodities are defined as 100,000 metric tons (20,000 mt for soybean oil) or more of one commodity in one day to a single destination, or cumulative sales of 200,000 metric tons (40,000 mt for soybean oil) or more of one commodity during the weekly reporting period to a single destination.