Grain > Commentary > 1-11-2024

1/11/2024

Jan 11, 2024

Thursday's session was a long, slow grind and it appeared most had opted to sit on the sidelines one day ahead of the USDA report.  The price action we did see was some basic positioning trade.  For the first time since December 19, the USDA made a flash sale announcement this morning.  This confirmed sale was for 175,000 tonnes of corn for delivery to Mexico during the 2023/24 marketing year.  The only other item of note today was the weekly net export sales report and it didn't really offer us much.  Corn sales were on the low-end of expectations with 488k tonnes sold and soybeans sales were a miss at 280k tonnes.  Trade does not expect to see much of a shakeup in numbers for tomorrow's report and pre-report estimates are mostly priced in so if we do see a drop in U.S. or South American crop production from the USDA, it may not ignite the rally you expect to see. 

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10/9/2026
Oct 09, 2026
USDA Report Update:
Well, the USDA gave us an absolute shocker this morning and raised the corn yield up to 181.2 bpa vs 178.5 in September.  The average trade guess was lower at 177.7 bpa.  The carryout is now up to 1.849 billion bushels vs 1.567 in September.  They raised Exports up 25 million, Feed and residual up 50 million and Ethanol up 50 million.  Corn is currently down 28 cents on this news.  This is an absolute shocker to the corn market. 
9/11/2026
Sep 11, 2026
It is USDA report day and it seemed like one of the most important reports we have had in a while.  The USDA placed corn yield at 178.5 bpa vs an average guess of 178.2.  They were in line with expectations and admitting we have an issue brewing.  This likely won’t be our lowest yield we see, but it at least drew a line in the sand for a starting point. 
7/10/2026
Jul 10, 2026
USDA report day was slightly friendly to the grain markets.
Corn:
25/26 corn carryout was pegged at 2.020 billion bushels vs an average guess of 2.073 billion.  The main changes to this year’s balance sheet had feed and residual usage up 150 million bushels while they decreased ethanol by 25 million bushels.  Corn Yield for next year was estimated at 183 bushel per acre, which was about as expected.