Grain > Commentary > 2-14-2024

2/14/2024

Feb 14, 2024

The markets offered no love on Valentine's Day. Corn and soybeans broke to the downside with what appears to be the beginning of another leg lower on the charts. Historically, soybeans have never spent much time trading in the $11 range and move quickly to either $10 or $12. Trade is expecting tomorrow's Ag outlook forum to provide a bearish overtone on the market. This report really shouldn't carry the weight that it does but it's published at a time during the year that is typically quiet and there's not much else to trade. We should expect to see a decrease in corn and an increase in soybean acres with trend-line yields plugged in. This will forecast some large 2024/25 ending stocks. Weekly ethanol production increased by 50k barrels/day to 1.083 mln bbls. Ethanol stocks also increased week-to-week from 24.8 mln to 25.8 mln barrels. Ethanol is now running 75 million bushels ahead of the pace needed to meet the USDA forecasted use of corn.

Corn futures came within 3 cents of completing a complete retracement back to the breakout (4.19) of our corn bull market that occurred in December 2020.

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2/10/2026
Feb 10, 2026
It was USDA report day today and it turned out to be a yawner.  The markets never really reacted to the report, and the grains finished the day about where they started with corn unchanged and beans up 12 on the day.  US corn carryout was pegged at 2.127 billion bushels vs the average trade guess of 2.227 billion.  World corn carryout was placed at 288.98 MMT vs the average trade guess of 290.48 MMT. 
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.