Corn Market Shrugs Off USDA Acreage Report

The USDA’s quarterly Acreage and Grain Stocks reports landed largely in line with expectations, but Van Ahn and Company COO Kristi Van Ahn-Kjeseth says the corn numbers had the potential to offer some support. “I would have honestly thought that this corn market would have been able to rally off of this number. Just seems like corn has lost its ability to do that,” said Van Ahn-Kjeseth. “We were having some expectations of 96 to 96 and a half million, which would have been over a million more than we currently have. I would’ve thought that this number was a little bit on the friendly side.” Despite the neutral tone of the report, Van Ahn-Kjeseth says the market may stay quiet until more concrete yield data comes in later this summer. “When you plug in this number to the S&Ds for corn, it just doesn’t scream anything overly bearish and it doesn’t scream anything overly bullish with a 181 yield, which I feel like is going to be very tricky to achieve,” she said. “We’re probably not going to see any acre adjustments until September… when it’s boots-on-the-ground yield versus satellite imagery only.”