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Corn had been in neutral heading into the October 12th USDA yield report, seeing bearish numbers. The report raised yield to 176.5 bushels per acre, slightly higher than the report last month. U.S. ending stocks and world stocks were both raised while also raising exports, lowering feed and residual use. The somewhat disappointing yields in the eastern corn belt were offset by better-than-expected western corn belt/plains yields. Demand looked to be lowered due to the continued export issues out of New Orleans since the hurricane, and a record crop in China won’t require them to import as much. The season-average ...

Corn took it on the chin upon the release of Thursday’s USDA report before bouncing back to finish only slightly lower on the day, but still up on the week. The report may have left more questions than answers hanging around as they raised ending stocks, but as we mentioned last week, the current basis and cash markets hint there may be less corn out there than the USDA believes. Corn stocks came in at 1.236 billion bushels, which was higher than the average estimate going in. Harvest was 18% done at the start of the week, and further progress ...

As corn, soybeans, and many other crops begin to enter their harvest season, it is time to think about how the harvest is progressing on the farm. According to agriculture.com, soybean harvest progress is at 16%, and the site reported corn to be at 18%. On top of the progress, it showed that most western and northern states were at a pace above average, and southeastern states were progressing below average. Last week, RCM Ag Services was fortunate to have a first-hand look at a couple of states within this region. Bert Farrish, Director of Commercial Agriculture, ventured out on an 800-mile crop tour ...

Jody Lawrence, RCM Ag Services’ head of research, joined Shay Foulk on his podcast “The Ag View Pitch” for this week’s market outlook. Jody hits on some major points, including harvest, basis, the upcoming USDA stocks report, and storage decisions that need to be made. Jody makes the point of discussing what the cash market has been telling us vs. what the futures market and USDA are. Basis has been historically strong while the USDA has not had drastically tight balance sheets showing us some disconnect. Should we expect this week’s report to lower ending stocks as the cash market ...

Corn was pretty even on the week, only losing 1 cent as overall market weakness to start the week pulled it lower, followed by a rebound the last few days. Harvest continues to roll on as there has been great weather the last week in most parts of the country. Inconsistent yield reports coming out of the eastern corn belt have raised an eyebrow, but with a long way to go before the end of harvest, it is not a market mover. As always, when harvest comes, we will begin to get an idea of how many bushels are going ...