Corn is trading fractionally to a penny lower ahead of this morning’s Export Sales report. Futures pulled back on Wednesday after a couple weeks of rallying and with a USDA report on the horizon tomorrow. Corn ended the midweek session with losses of 3 ½ to 8 ½ cents across most months. 

There were 364 contracts issued vs. May corn delivery overnight, with ADM stopping all of them for the house account. 

Weekly EIA data showed ethanol production at 965,000 barrels per day for the week that ended on May 3. That was a 22,000 bpd drop from the previous week. Stocks of ethanol were tallied at 24.2 million barrels, a sharp 1.288 million barrel draw on the week, mainly out of the Midwest region. Inventory is now the lowest since late 2023 though by no means tight yet.

With Export Sales data released on Thursday, the trade is expecting to see net old crop sales of 600,000 MT to 1.1 MMT in the week that ended on 5/2. New crop business is seen in a range of 0-150,000 MT.

Brazil’s production is on average expected to be cut be 1.7 MMT in Friday’s WASDE report, to 122.3 MMT. Argentina’s production estimate is seen at 52 MMT by analysts, compared to the 55 MMT from last month. 

May 24 Corn  closed at $4.45 1/2, down 8 1/4 cents, currently down 3/4 cents

Nearby Cash  was $4.36 5/8, down 8 1/4 cents,

Jul 24 Corn  closed at $4.58 1/2, down 8 1/2 cents, currently down 3/4 cents

Dec 24 Corn  closed at $4.81 1/4, down 7 1/4 cents, currently down 1/2 cents

New Crop Cash  was $4.45 1/1, down 7 1/8 cents,