3/26/2021

This week has been all about trade positioning themselves ahead of the USDA Grain Stocks and Planting Intentions reports that will be released next week.  Markets were quietly mixed during the overnight session, trading a range of 4 cents in corn and 10 cents in beans.  Week-to-week closes: corn down 5 and beans down 15.  The day session was also uneventful, with corn 2-3 higher and beans 13 lower until buying interest perked up around 11:30.  It feels like there was possibly another round of export business done today.  To start the week, the May-July corn inverse was at 19.5 cents and faded back to 14.5 cents this morning.  At market close today, the spread was back out to 16.75 cents, a good signal of possible additional front-end demand for corn.  Trade average estimates for planting intentions were made available today.  Corn acres average 93.2 million (90.8 in 2020) and beans acres averaged 90.0 million (83.1 in 2020).  This acreage with trend-line yields would put us at carry-outs of about 2.0 in corn and 174 for beans.  That increase in corn supply would likely send the corn bulls into hiding but the new crop bean futures could benefit given that a 174 carryout is still a fairly tight supply.  Have a great weekend!