Grain > Commentary > 4-3-2024

4/3/2024

Apr 03, 2024

A nice bounce back in the grains following Tuesday's lower markets. Corn and soybeans were able to recapture most of their losses from the prior session but trade has returned below the moving averages we were counting on as support levels. We failed to rally further on a mostly friendly planting intentions report and the bulls will be looking for the USDA to offer up some friendly numbers on the crop balance sheets in the WASDE next week. I would expect to see the USDA to raise corn usage for both exports and ethanol. The concern for the market going into April has been soil moisture following a mostly open winter but the past 10 days have brought us a nice boost just ahead of spring planting. With full planting and growing seasons ahead of us, current new crop levels have better support and our big risk is old crop pricing. It is important to be extremely diligent in pricing this year and, unless we get some type of risk factor that materializes, seasonal trends will provide the best clue as to what our market potential is.

A nice consolidation pattern forming in corn to fuel a breakout with our WASDE report next week. Fresh highs for this move definitely attainable on a friendly report.

Read More News

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. 
9/12/2025
Sep 12, 2025
USDA report day.  Corn and beans were trading higher pre-report on thoughts of a reduction to yields.  Well....we got what we were thinking but the USDA decided to throw a twist into the mix.  The 25/26 corn yield decreased slightly less than expected by 2.1 bu to 186.7 bpa, but they gave us the largest planted acreage shift on this report in at least the last 20 years (+1.4 mil acres) spurred an increase in production to 16,814 mbu.  25/26 ending stocks were slightly lowered by 7 mbu to 2,110 mbu.