Thursday Gains for Corn Market

Corn futures saw a 10 cent trading range on Thursday, mostly in the black. At the close, May futures were 6 1/4 cents higher and new crop futures were 1 1/2 to 2 cents higher. 

CFTC’s Commitment of Traders data is now current through the 3/7 settle. It had managed money corn traders wash out of 1/3 of their existing longs and more than double their existing shorts over 2 weeks from 2/21 to 3/9. That dropped their net long from 215.9k contracts to 21k contracts. Commercial corn hedgers had 432.6k longs and 663.4k shorts in place as of 3/7, which was a 36.6k contract weaker net short from the week prior. 

An Allendale survey suggests US producers intend to plant 90.414 million acres of 23/24 corn, compared to USDA’s working 91m acre number. The International Grains Council cut old crop production 3 MMT, and bumped stocks up 1 MMT to 256 MMT.  Their initial estimate for 2023/24 global production is 1.202 billion MT. 

USDA announced another 641k MT old crop corn sale to China this morning, following the 667k MT sale yesterday and the 612k from Tuesday. 

Weekly sales from FAS had 1.236 MMT of old crop bookings from the week that ended 3/9. That was down from 1.4 MMT last week and from 1.8 MMT the week prior, but was in the upper range of the pre-report estimates. USDA also reported 183k MT of new crop bookings for the week, bringing the forward book to 1.859 MMT. Last year had 2.132 MMT on the books for forward sales at the same time. Old crop commitments were tallied at 31.886 MMT (1.255 bbu) as of 3/9. That is 39% behind last year’s pace and is 65% of the season’s forecast. 

May 23 Corn  closed at $6.32 3/4, up 6 1/4 cents,

Nearby Cash   was $6.36 1/2, up 7 3/8 cents,

Jul 23 Corn  closed at $6.16 1/4, up 4 cents,

Sep 23 Corn  closed at $5.67 1/2, up 1 1/2 cents,