2/23/2023

Feb 23, 2023


2/23/2023
Corn was down double-digits on some of the biggest volume we've seen so far this year. The May contract gave away 15 cents on 258k contracts traded, the largest single-day volume for this contract. Soybeans settled just above their daily lows to post modest losses of 7-9 cents on average trading volume. The USDA Ag Outlook Forum Data gave us our first looks at what could potentially be our 2023/24 crop balance sheets but these numbers do not carry much weight. They are predicting 91 million corn acres and a yield of 181.5 bushels/acre with ending stocks printing at 1.88 billion bushels. This would result in a large bump in corn ending stocks from the current 1.27 bln bushels. Soybean plantings were predicted at 87.5 million acres with a yield 52 bushels/acre. This estimate pegs ending stocks at 290 million bushels. A modest increase from the current 2022/23 balance sheet. Weekly ethanol data showed output up 15,000 barrels/day to 1.03 mln bpd. Stocks increased by 249k barrels to 25.59 mln barrels.

Corn appears to be breaking out of some long-term consolidation to the low side. There is a good chance we see a potential visit to the December lows (636’6 on the May 23 chart) on this move.
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Aug 12, 2025
The USDA report today didn't treat the corn market very well.  Both corn acres and yield were higher the result has corn carryout over 2.1 billion bushels.  Corn yield was pegged at 188.8 bpa vs an estimate of 184.29 bpa.  How high is 188.8?  Well…the previous record was 179.3.  Planted corn acres were put at 97.3 million.  Total corn production is estimated at 16.742 billion bushels, which is 763 million more than the report estimates.
May 12, 2025
News broke Sunday that the USA and China have agreed to ease tensions and lower tariffs.  The US is lowering tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30%.  China is lowering their import tariffs from 125% to 10%.  Talks will resume in the coming weeks.  This news had stocks, grains and oil higher overnight. Then of course we had a USDA grain report come out at 11:00 this morning.  That was also a bit friendly.
Mar 31, 2025
USDA reported corn planting acres at 95.326 million acres of corn, which would be up a little more than 5% from 2024's final number and the second highest March figure of the last ten years behind only 2020's estimate of 96.99 mil acres.  US corn stocks as of March 1st were seen at 81.51 billion bushels, which was exactly what the trade had expected and was down just over 2% from March 1 of 2024.  USDA said farmers intended to plant 83.495 million acres of soybeans, which would be down about 4% from last year and was just a hair smaller than what the trade was looking for.  March 1 soybean stocks were pegged at 1.91 billion bu's, which again was nearly exactly as the trade had expected, and was up 3.5% compared to March 1, 2024.