3/17/2023

Mar 17, 2023


Corn and soybeans traded higher in steady fashion during the overnight session but gave back all gains immediately following the morning break.  Corn came back just enough to finish 1-2 cents higher and soybeans recovered roughly 5 cents off of their lows late in the day.  The USDA announced more corn sales to China this morning with 191k tonnes confirmed as a follow-up to yesterday's flash sale of 641k tonnes.  That's a 4-day total of 83 million bushels exclusively to China all for delivery during the 2022/23 marketing year.  Export net sales totals last week were within trade expectations but encouraging.  Corn sales netted 1.236 mln tonnes and soybeans came in at 665k tonnes.  May 23 corn futures go into the weekend nearly 30 cents above their 7-month low set last week, Dec 23 corn has managed to gain back only 10 cents.  There has not been much discussion about the Prospective Plantings report due out two weeks from today but early estimates have been around 92 million acres for corn.  Balance sheets show the available grain supply growing going into the 2024 but we do not have much room for error.

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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. 
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.
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.