US corn export sales for the 2024/25 crop year totaled 1.02 billion bushels on October 24, up 300 million bushels from a year ago and 44% of the USDA’s current crop year forecast of 2.325 billion bushels. In the previous 35 years, late October US corn export sales have averaged Read more…
Cash soft red wheat established a row crop harvest low of $5.41 on September 19/ 2024. Historically, soft red wheat has made a low price in the Autumn even in years with burdensome US wheat stocks. We have ranked the study years by the US wheat carryout to crop year Read more…
NOAA has forecast La Nina conditions for the western Pacific for the northern hemisphere autumn of 2024. We picked out the five years with strong La Nina conditions, as defined by NOAA, and examined the Brazilian soybean crop outcome compared to trend. In one crop year, 2011/2012, yield was sharply Read more…
December Hogs Futures have rallied sharply since making a low last summer. The reported heavy (over 120 pounds) hog census data on September 1 missed the mark to the low side based on lighter than expected slaughter data since early September. In a previous post we published a study suggesting Read more…
USDA rated just 22% of the US Pasture & Range in good or excellent condition on 10/13/2024 which is the lowest assessment for early October in the last 30 years except for the major drought year of 2012. The US cattle herd is small anyway, but the need to provide Read more…
Central Illinois cash corn most often makes a harvest (defined as September through December) low in September or October as would be expected as these are the heavy harvest months. However Later lows in some years have occurred in November or December as the tail end of new crop corn Read more…
USDA made only a slight revision in the US soybean 2024 soybean production estimate this month and retained a 550 million bushel projection for the 2024/25 US soybean carryout. We have computed correlation and standard error estimates for three major components of the balance table, production crush and exports, based Read more…
Declining ethanol prices have tightened profit margins for US corn based ethanol producers. The elasticity of corn demand to ethanol crush margins is greatly reduced by government subsidies such as the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) which mandates the blending of a certain volume of renewable fuels (including corn ethanol) into Read more…
Cash corn price in the Midwest has made a harvest (defined as September through December) low prior to or by the first week of October in 66% of years between 1992 and 2023. The current low for cash corn is $3.63 recorded on 9/20/2024.The expected harvest low for Midwest cash Read more…
Since mid summer nearby lean hog futures prices have rallied from the low end to the upper end of the projected price range based on assumed US market fall and winter hog supplies. One factor supporting hog prices deliverable on the CME live hog contract has been strong export demand. Read more…
Last month USDA forecast an average farm level soybean price at $10.80 $/bushel for the 2024/2025 crop year. Based on recent history, the USDA’s $10.80 projection would translate to a price range for the May soybean futures contract of $9.90 to $12.86. The model statistics are displayed in the table. Read more…
The September 1, 2024 Grain Stocks Report showed US corn stocks (carryover) about 50 million bushels under the USDA’s most recent estimate. This discrepancy will likely be added to the feed residual component for the 2023/2024 crop year and much more importantly raises the prospective feed usage in the 2024/2025 Read more…