As I mentioned in my previous recap, there was potential for a lot of market movers last week and two of the four were realized. The government is now back to work, and the USDA did not disappoint in shocking everyone with the results in their report. Despite all the news, the market managed to settle close to unchanged with December corn closing 3 cents higher while March and May futures were 2 cents higher. The funds are estimated to be short 72,323 corn and long 128,258 soybean contracts. (There is still no word on when the CFTC will update this report.)
Last Fridays WASDE was the biggest mover of the markets with a lot of disappointment for traders. The report showed a higher old crop carry in and a higher-than-expected yield number. The USDA has been working with a 24/25 balance sheet carry-in of 1,325 billion bushels, but that number jumped 207 million bushels to 1.532 billion bushels. Following a reduction in yield of .7 bushel per acre and a 100 million bushel increase in exports, the new carryout number is 2.154 billion bushels. Surprisingly the only demand increase in Friday’s report was on the export side. Despite strong margins we did not see an increase in ethanol demand. Feed demand was also left unchanged, but many argue that this number is too high and could be reduced in future reports. Below are the numbers from Friday’s report.
2025/26 US Carryout (Billion Bushels)
| November 2025 | Average Estimate | September 2025 | |
| Corn | 2.154 | 2.136 | 2.110 |
| Soybeans | .290 | .304 | .300 |
| Wheat | .901 | .867 | .844 |
2025 US Yield (Bushels per Acre)
| November 2025 | Average Estimate | September 2025 | |
| Corn | 186.0 | 184.0 | 186.7 |
| Soybeans | 53.0 | 53.1 | 53.5 |
2025 US Production (Billion Bushels)
| November 2025 | Average Estimate | September 2025 | |
| Corn | 16.752 | 16.557 | 16.814 |
| Soybeans | 4.253 | 4.266 | 4.301 |
The USDA did disclaim at the beginning of the report that “Changes to the U.S. balance sheets continue to reflect all U.S. government data available at the time of publication, but this month, in some cases, that information was limited.” Historically the National Ag Statistics Service does not update crop production in their December report, but given the limited information for the November report one must wonder if they will this year? With Friday’s report, it now feels more likely that we will continue the trend of making small reductions to the overall crop heading towards the January report with the final number likely to finalize somewhere in the 183-184 bushel per acre compared to lower numbers that some were anticipating.
With the government coming back to work, we should start receiving daily and weekly data that has been absent for the last 40+ days. Weekly crop progress, weekly export sales and daily funds position are all slated to start being released. Catchup timelines are not yet known for crop progress and the daily funds position, but the weekly export sales schedule has been released and surprisingly we will not be caught up until January as they work to gather weekly data for down time.
There are still a lot of market movers on the horizon in the coming weeks. The Supreme Courts decision on Trump tariffs legality, updated funds position reports, potential updated WASDE in December and the final yield report in January.
Upcoming reports
| Date | Report |
| 12/9/2025 | Crop Production |
| 1/12/2026 | Crop Production |
