Corn: The USDA released the acreage report at 11:00 AM today. This report caught the market off guard with a much larger than anticipated corn crop for 2016. In fact, the average trade estimate for the 2016 corn crop was 89.97 million acres. This was based primarily on the USDA’s Outlook Forum projection of 90.00 million acres of corn that was released back in February. Today’s report estimated that 93.60 million acres of corn will be planted in 2016. That is a significant increase over 2015’s levels and will be detrimental to U.S. corn prices. The increase stands to reason what many producers have been stating that they plan to do in 2016. Continue reading →

Corn: The USDA is to release their planting intentions report next week. On Thursday, Farm Futures released their survey of farmer’s planting intentions for 2016. Their survey indicated that farmers intend to plant 90 million acres of corn, which is a 2.3% increase from last year. The abundance of grain supplies is keeping a lid on U.S. corn prices. Argentina’s government has projected that their corn crop to be approximately 37 million metric tons. This is larger than USDA’s projection of 27 million metric tons for Argentina’s crop.  Over the past week, September corn futures increased by $0.01 while the average local harvest basis equaled -$0.17. Continue reading →

Corn: Over the past week, September corn futures increased by $0.06 while the average local harvest basis increased by $0.02 in West TN. The increase in corn prices can be attributed to the recent weakness in the U.S. dollar. The U.S. dollar has shown signs of weakness due to sluggish economic news. In fact, the Federal Reserve Chair, Janet Yellen, stated this week that the Fed will not raise interest rates as high as previously thought. Prior to this week, the Fed was expected to raise interest rates up to four times throughout 2016. However, due to lackluster economic data within the U.S., it seems that the Fed will only raise rates twice this year. Continue reading →

Corn: Corn traded higher today due to better export figures in this week’s export report. Exports were helped by support from the wheat market and due to a lower dollar. Analysts are reporting that corn acres may be higher than what the USDA reported at the Outlook Forum last month. USDA has estimated that the 2016 crop will be about 90.0 million acres. The soil temperature in the Midwest is warmer than it has been the past few years due to a milder winter. Continue reading →