Today’s USDA Crop Progress report, due at 4:00pm ET, opens a week that ends with Friday’s WASDE and October Crop Production reports. The latest data show 5 percent of the US corn crop harvested across seven states, compared with a five-year average of 3 percent — but the national picture is split. Harvest is 18 percent done nationally yet only 5 percent complete in Iowa after a record-wet September, and the forecast turns dry for two weeks starting this weekend, so harvest pressure could build just as the fund long is being unwound.
The yield debate is wide open. StoneX came out Friday at 182.1 bushels per acre and a 16.115 billion-bushel crop, above the USDA’s September estimate of 178.5. If the USDA moves that direction, the market may struggle to hold $5 corn. A cut toward the Pro Farmer Crop Tour’s 173.2 would likely be the first thing that turns the market back around. High temperatures in many areas this year may have stressed plants and capped yield potential, though late-season heat also reduced some disease pressure.
Corn traded at $4.99 a bushel Monday, up 0.25 percent; wheat rose 1.1 percent to $6.905 and soybeans gained 0.59 percent to $12.858. Managed-money corn longs were already being cut after the September 30 stocks report — Friday’s WASDE decides whether that unwind continues or reverses.