{"id":9754,"date":"2025-10-02T09:45:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T13:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fundamentalanalytics.com\/?p=9754"},"modified":"2025-10-14T09:54:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T13:54:32","slug":"corn-is-on-a-tear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fundamentalanalytics.com\/ar\/corn-is-on-a-tear\/","title":{"rendered":"Corn Is on a Tear"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Ken Rietz<\/span><\/p>\n

This year\u2019s corn crop is well on its way to a record harvest, with higher-than-expected acreage planted and high yield per acre. This is a significant statement, since the US is the world\u2019s largest exporter of corn. It is a two-edged blessing, since very high supply usually lowers the price and therefore the profit. But other factors also weigh in, such as exports. The full narrative can take some odd turns, and we will follow them in this commentary. But first, here is the graph of corn harvested in the US for the past few years.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Figure 1:\u00a0Acres of corn planted in the US<\/em><\/p>\n

The acreage of corn planted this year,<\/span>\u00a095.2 million acres<\/span><\/a>,<\/a>\u00a0is clearly larger than in any recent years. In fact, it is more than any year since 1936. The yield of corn per acre this year is\u00a0188.8 bushels<\/span>,<\/a>\u00a0up from 179.3 bushels last year. Next, the condition of the corn crop as of September 2, 2025 had\u00a069% with a good to excellent rating<\/span>,<\/a>\u00a0as compared to 64% last year. It is clear that this year is likely to set records. Finally, the corn stocks stand at 4.64 billion bushels, down 7% from the same time last year. That allows for some extra storage this year.<\/p>\n

With that setting the stage, we have a huge supply coming up. What does the demand look like?\u00a0The USDA has used the term\u00a0<\/a>blistering<\/a><\/span>\u00a0to describe the export demand for corn this year:<\/p>\n

2.97\u20132.975 billion bushels, which would be a record high if reached. The current estimates show the 2024\/2025 exports will be roughly 500 million bushels higher than in 2023\/2024, an increase of 22%!<\/p>\n

The expected corn export demand this year is beyond the corn supply of any previous year. But as we have seen, this year the supply of corn is larger than in any previous year. So far this year,\u00a0the<\/a>\u00a0corn weekly export inspections<\/a><\/span>\u00a0show just over 200 million bushels exported in the 2025\/2026 year, 50% higher than last year at this time. The key countries that import US corn (Mexico, South Korea, and Japan) are very busy importing. The countries that export corn (Brazil and Ukraine) both have some difficulties. Brazil is slow getting its second corn crop planted due to weather, while Ukraine is still handicapped some by its war with Russia. China, once a major importer of US corn, has pulled back all purchases since US tariffs were set. Estimates on US corn exported to China monthly\u00a0have dropped by 79%<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>year-over-year.<\/p>\n

Before we get to trading corn futures, here is a graph of their prices for the last several years:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Figure 2: Acres of corn planted in the US<\/em><\/p>\n

All this makes trading decisions less obvious. But there are signs that the market has already analyzed the situation. For example,\u00a0<\/span>corn futures initially dropped<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>when the USDA began describing a very large harvest, but then the prices moderated as export demand kicked up. But now, despite record exports,\u00a0corn futures have not trended higher<\/a><\/span>.<\/a>\u00a0The market is saying that it believes that there is enough supply for the demand right now. Of course, the weather in Brazil will always remain a factor. The most reasonable play is for corn futures to remain steady with a slow downtrend.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Ken Rietz This year\u2019s corn crop is well on its way to a record harvest, with higher-than-expected acreage planted and high yield per acre. This is a significant statement, since the US is the world\u2019s largest exporter of corn. It is a two-edged blessing, since very high supply usually lowers the price and therefore […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fundamentalanalytics.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fundamentalanalytics.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fundamentalanalytics.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fundamentalanalytics.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fundamentalanalytics.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fundamentalanalytics.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9755,"href":"https:\/\/www.fundamentalanalytics.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9754\/revisions\/9755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fundamentalanalytics.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fundamentalanalytics.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fundamentalanalytics.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}