Corn Worked Higher Overnight

Corn is giving back some of the overnight gains in early Monday futures action. Dec stayed in a tight 3 ¾ cent range and is currently holding onto a ¾ cent gain. Friday’s market ended with 1 ¼ to 2 ½ cent losses. That left the December contract with a net 2 ¼ cent gain for the week’s move. There have still been zero deliveries against September corn futures, with the oldest long dating back to 4/21/23. 

The weekly CFTC report had managed money spec funds closing longs and adding new shorts through the week that ended 9/5. That left their position at a net short of 93,913 contracts. The commercial traders were closing short hedges and adding long hedges for a 9,976 contract weaker net short of 93,506. 

Weekly Export Sales data showed the old crop corn business was a net 15k MT of cancelations. The weekly report had total 22/23 corn commitments at 40.58 MMT, or 1.598 bbu. The USDA forecast was for a 1.625 bbu export program. New crop export sales came in at the top end of estimates with 950k MT sold during the week that ended 8/31. Total forward commitments were 10.4 MMT as of 8/31, compared to 11.681 MMT to start the season last year. 

Analysts are looking for corn ending stocks on Tuesday to be 60.2 mbu tighter for new crop, but 2.6 mbu looser for old crop at 2.142 bbu and 1.459 bbu respectively. The survey respondents estimate USDA will publish a 173.5 bpa national average corn yield on Tuesday. That’d be a 1.6 bpa loss vs. August.  The full range of estimates runs from +0.2 to -4.1 bpa. That would set corn output expectations near 15.013 bbu. Harvested acreage is a wildcard, with NASS incorporating administrative data (aka FSA program numbers) into its estimates. 

Sep 23 Corn  closed at $4.68 1/2, down 2 1/4 cents, currently down 2 1/4 cents

Nearby Cash   was $4.61, down 12 1/4 cents,

Dec 23 Corn  closed at $4.83 3/4, down 2 1/2 cents, currently up 3/4 cent

Mar 24 Corn  closed at $4.98, down 2 cents, currently up 1 1/2 cents