Grain > Commentary > 1-24-2024

1/24/2024

Jan 24, 2024

Corn completes its fifth consecutive higher close to some solid gains from 4-6 cents higher. Soybeans traded from 5 cents lower to 5 cents higher throughout the day, ending Wednesday mixed. Spreads for both continue to tighten! It's some odd price action considering there's no rumors of any hot export business. It appears money is interested in buying our front contract months and the good news is there could be some teeth in this turnaround. March soybeans are back above the price levels we were trading on the day of the WASDE report and March corn is back above our report day close. The weekly ethanol report showed production down roughly 22% from the prior week to 818k barrels/day. The cold snap created an interesting scenario where some plants were not able to grind and process corn for ethanol production. Ethanol stocks grew slightly, from 25.7 to 25.8 million barrels.

Like soybeans a few days ago, corn has turned it around. We can assume that our WASDE report is now priced into the market and we can look to the upside for potential targets. The first test for the bulls (if we get there) will be the 20-day moving average which closed near 458’0 today.

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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. 
8/21/2025
Aug 21, 2025
Today the market ran higher on rumors for positive SRE announcements coming soon.  Bean oil was up over $2.  Beans finished the day up 20 cents at 10.56 Nov futures.  There is a chance we could make a run at the 10.74 Nov highs from back in June.  If we get there, I am a seller.  Bean basis remains in the garbage, so a run higher in futures doesn't help that either.  We still don't have a trade deal, so I think any rally is short lived at this time.