Grain > Commentary > 4-8-2024

4/8/2024

Apr 08, 2024

It took until the close at 1:20 but the paint was finally dry on today's session. There were some short spurts of volatility but corn and soybeans were mostly locked inside of 3-4 cent ranges throughout the day. Corn finished unchanged to 1 higher and soybeans ended Monday down 1-3 cents. Unless we get a major headline ahead of Thursday's report, expect more of the same leading up to 11:00am on Thursday. Trade is looking for the USDA to make another round of cuts to South American production. Weekly export inspections were strong for corn and beat the trade expectations with 1.42 mln tonnes shipped last week. Soybean shipments were okay with 484k tonnes shipped. The USDA also revised the previous week's report and increased inspection volumes for corn and soybeans.

Some nice general moisture over the weekend will moistly put to rest the "early planting" story the bears had been pitching for a while. Looks like the market will have a normal planting window to price in.

Read More News

10/9/2026
Oct 09, 2026
USDA Report Update:
Well, the USDA gave us an absolute shocker this morning and raised the corn yield up to 181.2 bpa vs 178.5 in September.  The average trade guess was lower at 177.7 bpa.  The carryout is now up to 1.849 billion bushels vs 1.567 in September.  They raised Exports up 25 million, Feed and residual up 50 million and Ethanol up 50 million.  Corn is currently down 28 cents on this news.  This is an absolute shocker to the corn market. 
9/11/2026
Sep 11, 2026
It is USDA report day and it seemed like one of the most important reports we have had in a while.  The USDA placed corn yield at 178.5 bpa vs an average guess of 178.2.  They were in line with expectations and admitting we have an issue brewing.  This likely won’t be our lowest yield we see, but it at least drew a line in the sand for a starting point. 
7/10/2026
Jul 10, 2026
USDA report day was slightly friendly to the grain markets.
Corn:
25/26 corn carryout was pegged at 2.020 billion bushels vs an average guess of 2.073 billion.  The main changes to this year’s balance sheet had feed and residual usage up 150 million bushels while they decreased ethanol by 25 million bushels.  Corn Yield for next year was estimated at 183 bushel per acre, which was about as expected.