Corn Gains Back Off into Close

Old crop corn worked  higher ahead of the USDA reports, while new crop sold off on Wednesday.  By the close the board was only fractionally to 1 cent in the black. March corn stayed in a 6 1/4 cent range through Wednesday. 

Weekly FAS Export Sales data is expected to show between 300,000 MT and 1 MMT of old crop corn was sold during the week that ended 1/05. New crop corn bookings are estimated below 75k MT. 

EIA’s weekly data ethanol production report had 943k barrels of daily production through the week that ended 1/06. That was a 99k bpd increase from last week but is still down from two weeks ago. Ethanol stocks were drawn down an additional 644k barrels to 23.8 million. 

China is extending their anti-dumping tariffs on DDGS from the U.S. for an additional 5 years. The tariff levels will remain intact, scaled up to as much as 66% dependent on volume.

Brazil’s AgRural reported 1st crop corn harvest at 2.3% finished through 1/05, compared to 3.1% at the same point last year. Agroconsult, a private firm in Brazil, estimated the as yet unplanted 2nd corn crop 7.1 MMT higher to 101.3 MMT for a total corn output of 130.9 MMT. 

Going into the monthly USDA reports traders are looking for a slightly higher corn yield on average, from 172.3 to 172.5 bpa. Total US production is on average expected to be 6.4 mbu higher. Carryout is expected to grow 56.7 mbu according to the average of estimates to 1.314 bbu. Lower exports are estimated to be the culprit. Global corn stocks are expected to drop by 700k MT as the increase to the U.S. carryout is expected to be offset by Argentina production cuts. 

Mar 23 Corn  closed at $6.56, up 1 cent,

Nearby Cash   was $6.61 7/8, up 1 cent,

May 23 Corn  closed at $6.55 1/4, up 3/4 cent,

Jul 23 Corn  closed at $6.48 1/2, up 1/2 cent,