Corn Pressure Continues as Planting Pace Continues

Austin Schroeder Barchart Tue May 13, 7:31AM CDT
Spring filed with sprouts of corn via Shutterstock

The corn market is trading with contracts down 2 to 4 cents across the front months. Futures fell back from the higher post-USDA report trade on Monday, with nearbys slipping 1 to 2 cents. New crop contracts were 3 to 4 cents in the green at the close. Preliminary open interest was down 12,484 contracts on Monday. There were another 67 deliveries issued against May overnight. The nearby CmdtyView national average Cash Corn price was down 1 1/2 cents at $4.19 1/2. 

Crop Progress data from Monday afternoon showed the US corn crop at 62% planted as of May 11, which is 6 percentage point ahead of the 5-year average pace. Emergence was tallied at 28%, running ahead of the 5-year average at 21%.

USDA updated corn balance sheets showed old crop down 50 mbu to 1.415 bbu, on an equal increase to exports. With the first release of the new crop data, USDA kept the March Prospective Planting number (95.3 million acres) and a trend yield of 181 bushel/acre to get a 15.82 bbu corn production total. The new crop stocks projection was tallied at 1.8 billion bushel, well below the average trade estimate.  

Argentina corn production was unchanged from last month at 50 MMT, while Brazil’s output was raised by 4 MMT to 130 MMT. World ending stocks for 2024/25 were down 0.36 MMT to 287.29 MMT, while new crop was tallied at 277.84 MMT. 

Export Inspections data showed a total of 1.22 MMT (48.19 mbu) of corn shipped during the week of May 8. That was a drop of 24.29% from the previous week but 21.85% above the same week last year. Japan was the largest destination of 370,450 MT, with 357,162 MT headed to Mexico and 271,068 MT to South Korea. Marketing year exports have totaled 43.748 MMT (1.772 bbu) since September 1, which is 28.63% above the same period last year. 

May 25 Corn  closed at $4.40 1/4, down 1 1/4 cents, currently unch 

Nearby Cash  was $4.19 1/2, down 1 1/2 cents,

Jul 25 Corn  closed at $4.48, down 1 3/4 cents, currently down 3 cents

Dec 25 Corn  closed at $4.45 1/2, up 3 1/2 cents, currently down 3 1/4 cents

New Crop Cash  was $4.03 1/4, up 3 1/2 cents,


On the date of publication, Austin Schroeder did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.