Corn Nudging Higher to Extend Gains into Tuesday

Corn prices are showing another round of early strength on Tuesday, up 1 to 2 cents. Futures closed out the Monday session with contracts up 6 ¾ to 11 ¾ cents across the board. Preliminary open interest was down 2,915 contracts overall, with December down 5,623 contracts and implying short covering. The national average Cash Corn price from cmdtyView was up 12 1/4 cents at $3.80 1/4 per bu.

The weekly Crop Progress report from NASS showed the US corn crop at 92% dented, with 61% listed as mature. Harvest pace was listed at 14% complete, 3 percentage points ahead of the 5-year average. Condition ratings were left unchanged in the combined gd/ex categories at 65%, with 1% dropping from excellent to good and pulling the Brugler500 index down 1 point to 364.

Monday morning’s Export Inspections report showed a total of 1.102 MMT (43.42 mbu) of corn shipped in the week that ended on September 19. That was a sharp improvement over the week prior and 55.2% larger than the same week in 2023. A bulk was shipped to Mexico, totaling 469,868 MT, with 311,415 MT headed to Columbia and 131,290 MT to Japan. A total of 2.14 MMT of corn has been shipped during the MY (84.38 mbu), which is now 5.94% above the same time last year.

AgRural expects the Brazilian first corn crop at 26% planted as of Thursday. 

Dec 24 Corn  closed at $4.13 1/2, up 11 3/4 cents, currently up 1 3/4 cents

Nearby Cash  was $3.80 1/4, up 12 1/4 cents,

Mar 25 Corn  closed at $4.31 3/4, up 11 3/4 cents, currently up 1 1/2 cents

May 25 Corn  closed at $4.42 1/2, up 11 1/2 cents, currently up 1 1/4 cents