Corn is down by as much as 4 ¼ cents so far ahead of the release of the weekly USDA Export Sales report. Corn recovered from early weakness and settled mixed on Wednesday. The water was calm on the surface, but there was activity underneath the boat. Preliminary open interest rose 11,466 contracts, with big new bets made by both sides in the old crop March, May and July. Basis tightened on Wednesday with a national average cash corn rally and sideways futures.
Traders are looking for the weekly Export Sales report this morning to show between 800k MT and 1.3 MMT of old crop corn sales during the week ending January 25.
The weekly EIA data showed ethanol producers averaged 991k barrels of output per day during the week that ended 1/26. That was a nice uptick from the week prior, which had seen the lowest output in over 2 years. That was also just the 3rd week of the MY with sub 1m barrels per day. Ethanol stocks were 24.27m barrels, which was back down by 1.5 million for the week. NASS will release the monthly Grain Crushings report (which will show December’s corn used for ethanol) after today’s close.
Brazil’s Anec estimated corn exports at 3.5 MMT for the month of January. That’s 28.2% below the volume during Jan ’23.
USDA’s Ag Attache from Kyiv raised the projected 23/24 corn exports to 29.2 MMT, 39% above the official WAOB figure – citing a large export program for the month of December and increased export capacity via both the Danube river and via Romanian ports.
Mar 24 Corn closed at $4.48 1/4, up 1/2 cent, currently down 4 1/4 cents
Nearby Cash was $4.26 5/8, up 7 1/4 cents,
May 24 Corn closed at $4.58 1/2, down 1/4 cent, currently down 3 3/4 cents
Jul 24 Corn closed at $4.66 1/2, down 3/4 cent, currently down 3 1/2 cents
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