Morning Weakness in Corn Market

Front month corn futures are sitting near their overnight lows on a tighter ranged pre-market into report day. Overnight, December stayed in just a 4 cent range, with the board currently down by 2 to 2 1/2 cents. Corn traded mostly lower on Tuesday, with the market settling 1 3/4 to 5 1/4 cents in the red. With multi-week highs on Monday, the main dynamic was profit taking ahead of Wednesday’s Crop Production and WASDE reports. 

The weekly NASS update showed 87% of the corn crop was mature as of 10/9, now 2% points ahead of average. Corn harvest advanced from 20% complete to 31% complete and is now 1% point ahead of the average pace. Illinois harvest is still trailing their average pace with 27% of the crop out compared to 43% on average. National corn conditions were converted to a 337 on the Brugler500 Index, up from 331 last week. 

USDA’s weekly Export Inspections totaled 457,366 MT for corn during the week that ended 10/6. That was down from last week’s 673k MT and from 851k MT during the same week last year. Mexico and Japan were the top destinations. Year to date shipments are 2.827 MMT vs. 3.12 MMT at the same time in 2021. 

Argentina’s BAGE reported 13% of the 2023 early corn crop was in the ground, trailing last year’s 24% pace. Brazil’s AgRural reported 1st crop corn planting reached 38.8% planted – up from 34% last week and slightly ahead of last year’s 37.9% pace. 

Trade ideas ahead of the USDA reports have 2023 corn ending stocks dropping to 1.126 billion bushels. World ending stocks on average are between 280 MMT to 311 MMT with the average being 2.6 MMT below Sep. 

Dec 22 Corn  closed at $6.93, down 5 1/4 cents, currently down 2 1/4 cents 

Nearby Cash   was $6.75 3/8 on Tuesday, down 4 3/4 cents,

Mar 23 Corn  closed at $7.00 1/4, down 4 1/2 cents, currently down 1 3/4 cents

May 23 Corn  closed at $7.01 1/2, down 4 1/4 cents, currently down 2 cents