Grain > Commentary > 1-10-2024

1/10/2024

Jan 10, 2024

Some small signs of life were present in the market today but trade just couldn't hold corn and soybeans higher all the way into the close.  Corn ends the day virtually unchanged but March spreads continued on their recent trend of tightening.  It appears that some corn business was unofficially confirmed done today after it was rumored late yesterday.  Price action was terribly poor in soybeans today.  Buyers attempted to buy the dip shortly after the 8:30 market open which rallied us roughly 10 cents off that low.  This fresh money was washed out by the close today as trade took a round trip back to the same price levels we opened the day session with.  The weekly ethanol report showed a small increase in production of 13,000 barrels/day to 1.062 mln bpd.  Stocks grew by 800,000 barrels to 24.4 million barrels; this is an 8-month high.  Marketing year corn use for ethanol is approximately 6.7% ahead of last year's pace.  The USDA will likely need to increase their demand number for ethanol on the balance sheet.

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1/12/2026
Jan 12, 2026
Well, the USDA report had a bit of a surprise today and not in a good way.  Not only did they increase the 2025 corn yield, from 186.0 to 186.5, they also increased Harvest Acres from 90 million to 91.3 million.  That raised the total corn production to 17.021 billion, up an additional 269 million bushels from their previous estimate.  U.S. Ending Stocks are now estimated at 2.227 bbu, vs. 2.209 in Dec.  Report trade guesses were at 1.97 bbu.
11/14/2025
Nov 14, 2025
It was USDA report day today and overall, it was bearish for both corn and beans.  Corn Yield was only reduced by .7 bpa down to 186 bpa.  The market was expecting closer to 184 bpa.  Corn production is estimated at 16.752 billion vs 16.814 billion in September.  They raised exports 100 million, which is debatable, but possible.  Ending stocks on corn were estimated at 2.154 billion bushels, which is up 44 million from September and about 29 million more than the market expected. 
9/12/2025
Sep 12, 2025
USDA report day.  Corn and beans were trading higher pre-report on thoughts of a reduction to yields.  Well....we got what we were thinking but the USDA decided to throw a twist into the mix.  The 25/26 corn yield decreased slightly less than expected by 2.1 bu to 186.7 bpa, but they gave us the largest planted acreage shift on this report in at least the last 20 years (+1.4 mil acres) spurred an increase in production to 16,814 mbu.  25/26 ending stocks were slightly lowered by 7 mbu to 2,110 mbu.