Grain > Commentary > 12-21-2023

12/21/2023

Dec 21, 2023

As we near the extended holiday weekend, trade continues to look disinterested in commodities in general. Corn and soybeans have been in a day-to-day pattern of taking turns selling off. We are in full holiday mode in the markets and there's nothing moving us but chart trade. Our final 2023 production numbers will be out in January and will likely provide our next best opportunity at pricing grain. Weekly net export sales came in at some nice levels and at mid-range of expectations with 1.013 mln tonnes of corn and 1.989 mln tonnes of soybeans sales last week. That was a 7-week low in corn sales but still ahead of the sales pace needed to hit the USDA target. That was also the second best week of the last year for soybeans.

A lack of seasonal snowfall has the drought monitor starting to add more color. Still plenty of time for some significant snowfalls but if current conditions persist, trade will not be able to ignore this.

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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.