The corn market will resume trading this morning at 8:30 am CST after the day (and overnight) off for the New Years holiday. Futures closed the Wednesday session with steady to fractionally lower trade to wind down 2025. Open interest rose 5,462 contracts, despite 4,078 contracts leaving March. The CmdtyView national average Cash Corn price was down another 1 ½ cents at $3.96 1/4.
On Wednesday afternoon, USDA released the payment details for the Farm Bridge Assistance program, with the corn payment listed at $44.36/acre. Sorghum was tallied at $48.11.
Commitment of Traders data from Wednesday showed managed money flipping back to a net long by 55,431 contracts, with the net long at 2,759 contracts. Most of that was due to short covering, with outright shorts down 64,573 contracts.
USDA released their Export Sales report Wednesday morning, with a total of 2.2 MMT of corn sold in the week of December 18. That was a 5-week high for sales and 28.7% above the same week last year.
EIA data was caught up on Wednesday, with a total of 1.12 million barrels of ethanol produced in the week of 12/26, back up 25,000 bpd from the week prior. Ethanol stocks were 416,000 barrels higher to 22.944 million barrels. Ethanol exports were down 71,000 bpd to 148,000 bpd, as refiner inputs of ethanol down 24,000 bpd to 888,000 bpd.
Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.40 1/4, down 1/4 cent,
Nearby Cash was $3.96 1/4, down 1 1/2 cents,
May 26 Corn closed at $4.48 1/4, down 1/4 cent,
Jul 26 Corn closed at $4.54 1/2, unch,
