Corn Gains Double Digits on Report Day

Report day buying moved corn prices 4 1/2 to 13 3/4 cents higher to start the new week. That left Dec prices just under the $7 mark at the high for the day, a level not breached since June 21st. USDA raised the cash average price for corn by a dime to $6.75/bu. 

After the close, NASS covered the corn progress through 9/11. They found 95% of the crop was past the dough stage, with 77% dented. That compares to 63% last week and 79% on average. A quarter of the national crop was mature, up from 15% last week and 5% points behind the average pace. Harvest progressed 5% through the week and is running 1% point ahead of average. As for crop conditions, NASS showed a 53% good/ex rating. The Brugler500 index was 336. That was down 2 points from last week, despite a significant improvement for CO. MI, SD, and PA were down the most for the week.

NASS decided 1.2 million acres it previously thought were planted were not really there. They cut harvested acres by 1 million, to 80.84m acres. MN, MO, NE, SD, TN, and TX were all cut by more than 100k acres, while IN, IL, and IA were raised by a total of 400k acres. Yield was cut 2.9 bpa to 172.5 bushels per acre in the Crop Production report. The trade’s average guess was 172.4 bpa. IL was 1 bpa higher to 204, while IA was down 5 to 205 bpa and OH 4 weaker to 186 bpa. 

Factoring the production through the balance sheet, the WASDE report showed the 415 mbu lighter production and 5 mbu tighter stocks left 22/23 carryout 169 mbu lighter. Ethanol was cut by 50, feed and residual use was 100 mbu lighter and exports were down 100 mbu from the August report. 

Globally, production was 7.03 MMT lighter as Ukraine and China were lifted to offset some of the U.S. and EU cuts. Ending stocks, figured at 304.5 MMT, were down 2.15 MMT from August compared to the expected 5 MMT trim.

USDA’s weekly Export Inspections data showed that 446,620 MT of corn were shipped during the week that ended 9/8. That was down from 531k MT last week, but was 267k MT above the same week a year prior. 

Sep 22 Corn  closed at $7.12 1/4, up 13 3/4 cents,

Nearby Cash   was $7.00 3/4, up 7 1/4 cents,

Dec 22 Corn  closed at $6.96, up 11 cents,

Mar 23 Corn  closed at $6.99 1/2, up 10 1/4 cents,