The market continues to consolidate in a tight range ahead of the key USDA report. Basis remains very weak, but a slowdown in harvest and questionable South American weather may be factors to help support. Volume may be muted until the release of the report on Thursday. Export inspections and crop harvest progress will be released today with traders looking for corn harvest progress at 25% to 30% vs 17% last week, and the ten year average of 33%. For the USDA reports on Thursday, traders see yield near 169.8 bushels per acre. The average estimate for 2017-2018 ending corn stocks is near 2.251 billion bushels (range of 1.985-2.425 billion) versus September USDA estimate of 2.335 billion bushels. If yield is revised down by just 1.2%, ending stocks would slip to 2.113 billion bushels. The average estimate for world ending stocks is 201.2 million tonnes, versus 202.5 million tonnes in the September report. Conab pegged the new crop corn production between 92.2 to 93.6 million tons from 97.8 million tonnes last year. This compares with the current USDA estimate of 95 million tonnes. Support comes in at 347, don’t rule out a bounce to 362 on a shift down in yield.

 

Dec ’17 Corn Daily Chart