Corn Sticking Near Unchanged on Thursday AM

The corn market is trading with contracts fractionally mixed, with the nearbys higher and new crop lower. Price action was lower on Wednesday, as contracts were down fractionally in some contracts to 3 cents at the close.  CmdtyView’s national average Cash Corn price was down by a penny at $4.46. 

USDA’s Outlook Forum numbers released this morning showed corn acreage estimated at 94 million acres by Office of the Chief Economist, up 3.4 million from last year. It is important to note this is not a survey driven number, with the that data coming in the March Intentions report. Their balance sheet used a 181 bpa ‘weather adjusted’ trend yield, with a projected carryout of 1.965 billion bushels.  

President Trump indicated the potential tariffs on Mexico and Canada are will now go into effect on April 2, pushed back from the previous March 4 deadline.

Wednesday morning’s EIA report tallied ethanol production down just 3,000 barrels per day in the week that ended on February 21 at 1.081 million barrels per day. Stocks saw the largest weekly build since January 2023, up 1.353 million barrels to 27.571 million barrels. Much of that came via the Midwest, at the largest on record of 11.16 million barrels, with the Gulf up 540,000 barrels. 

Weekly Export Sales data will be released this morning, with traders looking for 0.9-1.65 MMT in old crop corn bookings during the week of 2/20. New crop sales are estimated at 0-100,000 MT. 

A couple South Korean importers purchased a total of 198,000 MT of optional origin corn overnight.

Mar 25 Corn  closed at $4.78 1/4, down 1 1/2 cents, currently up 1/4 cent 

Nearby Cash  was $4.46, down 1 cents,

May 25 Corn  closed at $4.93 1/2, down 3/4 cent, currently up 1/2 cent

Dec 25 Corn  closed at $4.67, down 3 cents, currently down 1/2 cent

New Crop Cash  was $4.35 1/2, down 3 cents,