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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11/14/2025
Nov 14, 2025
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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.