Grain > Commentary > 8-4-2021

8/4/2021

Aug 04, 2021

8/4/2021
Corn was pressured again, today, by new weather models suddenly showing good chances of precipitation in parts of important growing areas.  Locally, we are even showing some higher percent chances for tonight and at the start of the weekend of rain that wasn't there yesterday.  Soybeans bounced back slightly, finishing 6 higher on the day after yesterday's sharply lower move.  I am looking for volatility to remain consistent with the 10-20 cent daily ranges and prices to stay rangebound until we get some fresh fundamentals to trade on next Thursday with the August WASDE report.  Overall, we will likely follow seasonal trend lower into harvest with South America currently supplying the global market.  Weekly ethanol numbers showed production down 1,000 bpd to 1.013 million bpd and stocks shrinking 100k bbls to 22.6 mln bbls.  The current pace of corn usage for ethanol is 44 million bushels short of the USDA's target for the year.  The StoneX customer yield survey results were released yesterday and showed a national average of 176.9 bu/ac for corn and 50 bu/ac for soybeans.  There is always upside in every market at any time but do not let bullishness get in the way of practical decision making.  $6.00 cash corn is not a mistake and new crop corn delivered above $5.00 is not a mistake.

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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.