12/16/24 Afternoon CommStock Report – Corn versus Soybeans

There was a time last summer when funds imagined that corn demand was so weak and anticipated yields were so high that a 3 bln bushel carryover was not out of the question. Thank goodness that did not happen. I think that you could have taken a lot of bets that the 2024/2025 corn carryover would not be smaller than the 2023/2024 carryover but that is where the USDA went in the December WASDE report. 1.738 bln versus 1.76 bln bushels. They will still likely print a record yield but have understated demand for a long time. USDA is typically quick to tell bad news and slow to release good news. In my opinion they should have adjusted supply lower in the September stocks report but then again reducing the carryover as they did in the December WASDE report was early by their standards. I would have expected that they would have waited until the January annual report. From our perspective in NW IA, we have believed that corn stocks were overstated for some time. Our basis had run 30+ CBOT and we only touched par for the basis at the peak of harvest. The stocks were short in this…