May Corn finished down 6 at 359, 8 1/4 off the high and 3/4 up from the low. July Corn closed down 5 at 366 3/4. This was 3/4 up from the low and 7 3/4 off the high.

July corn traded to a high of 374 1/2 early in the day, but reversed on rumors that the Trump administration could exit out of the NAFTA agreement and some weather analysts who have taken some moisture out of the forecast. The market closed at 366 3/4 down over 1.3% on the day. Regardless of the ever-changing precipitation panels, the weather over the next two weeks will not be ideal for planting progress. Three systems will bring heavy amounts of rain into the Midwest through May 10th along with colder temperatures. The open interest in corn went down 26,521 contracts on Tuesday with heavy short covering from speculative shorts. The average estimates for Thursday’s export sales are 750,000 to 1.2 million tonnes. Ethanol production for the week ending April 21st averaged 987,000 barrels per day. This is down 0.60% vs. last week and up 6.47% vs. last year. Total ethanol production for the week was 6.909 million barrels. Corn used in last week’s production is estimated at 103.64 million bushels. This crop year’s cumulative corn used for ethanol production for this crop year is 3.57 billion bushels. Corn use needs to average 99.947 million bushels per week to meet this crop year’s USDA estimate of 5.45 billion bushels. Stocks as of April 21st were 23.269 million barrels. This is up 1.02% vs. last week and up 7.58% vs. last year.