Grain > Commentary > 1-19-2024

1/19/2024

Jan 19, 2024

A solid effort was made for a small run higher in corn and soybeans to end the week.  Throughout the overnight session and the first half of the day trade, corn and soybeans had the look of trying to reverse higher out of the short-term trends but the finish left something to be desired.  The USDA made a flash sale announcement this morning for 297,000 tonnes of soybeans for delivery to China during the 2023/24 marketing year.  Trade was also given some confidence to hit the buy button following a strong weekly export sales report.  Corn sales slightly outperformed trade expectations with 1.251 mln tonnes of corn sold last week.  Soybeans were on the upper end of expectations with 781k tonnes sold.  This was exactly what we needed following a couple short holiday weeks that included some less-than-impressive sales.  It should be expected that any type of significant rally will be met with some serious selling from the farmer and basis will get defensive in a hurry.  March corn spreads tightened even further today and it appeared some corn export business may finally be getting completed.

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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.