11/20/2023 CBOT Corn Price Discovery at War with the Basis

PLEASE REFER TO THE HEDGE AND TRADE STRATEGY PAGE FOR UPDATES!! I saw a combine running in the last cornfield standing between home and Minneapolis Sunday. Harvest is done and there has been an extraordinary amount of fall tillage done in my opinion. More tillage tends to mean more corn the next year. I saw NH3 rigs running so the next corn crop is being committed to. USDA was looking for a drop in corn acres next year to 91 mln. I will believe that when I see it. Our local corn market at our ethanol plant inverted again. The carry structure that the CBOT had put into the corn market during harvest has been taken away again, reverting back to a premium spot month in the cash market. The CBOT typically has structured the carry and this time the basis is doing so. Our ethanol plant started near 25 cents under CBOT during harvest and is now 20 cents over CBOT December. Then their basis quickly fades to 12 under CBOT March for January delivery. That puts their spot cash corn price at 487 and their January cash bid at just 473 Friday. They are trying to telegraph that…