Week Ending 12/26/2025

With a shortened week of trading and light volumes corn managed to find some strength, closing 6 higher in the March and July contracts while May futures closed 7 higher. The funds are estimated to be short 19,366 corn and long 154,474 soybean contracts.

Headlines about Ukraine shipping troubles and the Russian conflict added support to the markets last week. Ukraine is reporting that Russian attacks on infrastructure and ports have slowed grain exports during December. According to the Ukraine Farm Union, Ukraine wheat and corn exports are significantly below commitments. Several smaller exporters in Ukraine have defaulted on sales with the demand shifting to other suppliers. Ukraine exports are down 300 million bushels versus a year ago, which has pushed US corn exports higher by a similar amount.

The government continues to be slow to reconcile reports since the shutdown.  They have all the data but have failed to put it together and send it out. Every boat is registered for freight and every reportable position to the CFTC has long been reported so why this data hasn’t been released continues to puzzle me. Reports are that we will have all of the data by the end of the year, but we will see if that timeline is met.

Overall, the corn market has performed very well against the break in beans.  I think this is positive for corn heading into the end of the year and eventually the January Crop Report.

The markets will trade full hours on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday this week and be closed on Thursday. I look for light volume again this week with traders out of the office. Next week we can get back to a normal trade schedule and hopefully have all data updated and reported for traders as we prepare for the January 12^th report. The corn markets put in their winter high following the January crop report last year. I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened again this year.

Happy New Year!

Upcoming reports