12/1/2021

A fresh month brought around some fresh length interest for funds and managed money with corn and soybeans recovering a solid portion of the prior day's losses with corn gaining back 1-5 cents and soybeans finishing 5-11 cents higher.  There were recoveries across several markets today after yesterday's broad sell-off.  Fundamentals have not changed much, if at all, this week, meaning the money flow is the path of least resistance.  We had another 8am sale announcement from the USDA this morning of 150,000 tonnes of corn for delivery to Colombia in the 2021/22 marketing year.  The weekly ethanol report showed output has cooled off with production down more than expected to a 7-week low of 1.035 million barrels per day and stocks were increased by 137,000 barrels to a 12-week high of 20.3 million barrels.  This does follow a seasonal down-trend and after production surged through harvest, production and stock numbers have fallen into line with the past 5 years.  An early report from the University of Illinois is estimating a 3% increase in US corn acres for next year.  That would put the United States at 96 million acres of corn next year.  The same report estimated a 1.7 million decrease in soybean acres to 85.5 million.  Some excellent weather to begin the final month of the year.  Make sure to try and enjoy it!

Continuous chart comparing corn and urea futures.  Courtesy of Nick Paumen at CHS Hedging.