Grain > Commentary > 4-24-2024

4/24/2024

Apr 24, 2024

Profit taking was the feature of corn and soybean trade after corn rallied 20 cents and soybeans rallied 46 cents over the past week.  Spread correction was also seen today with May price spreads widening back out 1-2 cents.  Wheat continued on its march higher, picking up anywhere between another 9-15 cents.  For those with basis-fixed grain in the elevator, regardless if your plan is to roll it forward or price it, sooner may be better before Friday's deadline to squeeze the most out of the past week's market action.  Weekly ethanol report showed production down 29,000 barrels/day to 954k bpd and stocks off 400,000 barrels down to 25.7 million.  One of our recent price targets hit today when December corn traded up to 477'0 and the new crop orders that were placed for $4.25 were filled.

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8/12/2025
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.
5/12/2025
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.
3/31/2025
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.