Cash Grain Markets

gested before, there are many tools to manage your risk. Don’t be shy about using them. There’s still a lot of summer left, and we need to get through the July 12 report. We also need more rain in many areas. Buckle up, boys, it could be a bumpy ride!

For the week, September corn plummeted 96.25 cents to $4.88.5, and the December contract dove 93.25 cents to $4.94.75 per bushel. December corn closed below $5.00 per bushel for the first time since October 2021! September closed out the week with a string of seven straight lower closes. The new crop/ deferred corn carries widened sharply in post-report trading.

A little July 4th December corn price history: in nine of the last 12 years, whichever way the contract closed the day before the holiday, it followed that direction the day after the holiday.

metric tons last year on this date. We need to average 14.2 million bushels per week to reach the USDA’s 1.725 billion bushel export forecast, which at this time seems unlikely. Traders will be looking for a decrease in the export category on the July report. New crop sales were 4.8 million bushels. Total new crop commitments are 124 million bushels vs. 251 million bushels last year. China has purchased a total of 272 tmt of new crop US corn compared to 2.7 mmt last year by now.

Weekly ethanol production was unchanged at 1.05 million barrels per day. Production is behind the pace needed to reach the USDA forecast by an estimated 47 million bushels. Ethanol stocks were up 175,000 barrels at 23 million barrels. Net margins improved by 11 cents to 52 cents per gallon. Gasoline demand was down 69,000 bpd to 9.3 million bpd.

Argentina’s corn harvest is 61 percent complete vs. the 74 percent average, according to the Argentine Ag Secretary. The Buenos Aires Grain Exchange pegged the harvest at 49 percent complete vs. 58 percent on average. Their soybean harvest is complete. The outlook for the Black Sea grain agreement is that Russia will not extend it beyond the July 18 expiration.

Outlook: The June 30 reports are behind us and now we’ll look ahead to full balance sheets on the July 12 World Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimates report. However, weather will continue to be a major influence on prices. Damage from this week’s derecho from eastern Nebraska through southern Iowa, central Illinois, and Indiana is still being evaluated. Early pictures look like corn was bent but didn’t break. Will the USDA lower the corn yield on the July report? They usually don’t, but this year’s conditions are the lowest in decades.

This is a highly volatile time of year. As I’ve sug-

SOYBEANS — Soybeans were on a downward trajectory until the June 30 reports rocketed soybean prices higher. The grain stocks and acreage reports were both bullish for soybeans. August soybeans traded to their highest since mid-March in post-report trading.

Before the reports, weather forecasts were turning more favorable for crop development and prices shrugged off current ratings and dryness. As of June 27, the drought monitor showed 63 percent of U.S. soybean acres were under drought. This was a 6 percent increase from the previous week. Soybean conditions as of June 25 fell 3 percent from the previous week to 51 percent good/excellent. Illinois and Iowa were down 8 percent, Minnesota down 4 percent, Wisconsin down 7 percent, Indiana down 10 percent, and Ohio up 5 percent. These are the worst conditions since 1988.

A strong soyoil market lent underlying support to soybeans and may have limited early week losses as the lead July soyoil contract jumped to prices not seen since February.

The acreage report showed 83.5 million soybean acres. This was well below the lowest trade estimate and down 4.5 million acres from the March report. North Dakota’s soybean acreage was down 900,000 acres from the March estimate but only down 50,000 acres from last year. Illinois bean acres were down 800,000 acres from last year and from the March estimate. None of the top soybean producing states had an increase in acres vs. the March report.

The grain stocks at 796 million bushels were 17 million bushels below the 812 million bushel estimate. Forty percent of the stocks were on-farm. Combining the reports raises expectations for a tighter balance sheet on the July WASDE report.

The USDA announced the sale of 4.85 million bushels of new crop soybeans to China this week. This may be the rumored sale we had heard about for the last couple of weeks but hadn’t been con-