A combination of technical buying and optimism of an increase in export sales helped rally the markets last week. We didn’t break out of our current range but did move back to the upper range following Fridays close. For the week December and March futures closed 10 cents higher while May and July futures ended the week 11 cents higher. The funds are estimated to be short 120,492 corn and long 146,126 soybean contracts.
President’s Xi and Trump both made positive comments on trade talk progress after a phone call last Monday that was initiated by XI. President Xi invited President Trump to Beijing in April and President Trump reciprocated with an invite the United States later. Following that call Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins stated that China would be signing the trade agreement in the next couple weeks. She also mentioned that farmer aid will be announced soon. The dates and timing of both subjects have been very vague to say the least.
In a statement last week, the National Agricultural Statistics Service announced that data collection is underway for the January 12th crop report. During the first two weeks of December, NASS will survey 75,000 US producers to gather data on harvested acres, production and bushels in storage. NASS will not update production numbers for the upcoming December 9th WASDE report. The only potential changes in that report will be demand and foreign production. This is significant as there have been some talks of adjustments to production in the December report due to the lack of time to gather data for the November report.
Historically the markets begin their winter rally as we exit November and head into December. Except for 2024, March futures have rallied or traded flat in the month of December. Will this year’s record crop and lack of new demand keep futures from rallying, or will we follow the historical trends and trade higher in the coming month as we await the final USDA production report in January.
March futures seasonal trend from 2016-2025
Last week’s crop progress report showed a 5% increase from the previous week with 96% of the US corn crop in the bin. This will be the last harvest report for the year with the remaining 4% expected to be harvested.
Upcoming reports
| Date | Report |
| 12/9/2025 | Crop Production |
| 1/12/2026 | Crop Production |
