Week Ending 1/30/26

Corn had an up and down week of trade with the lack of fundamental news in the market. The announcement of the next chairman of the Federal Reserve and forecasts for wetter weather in Argentina pressured the markets to end the week. March, May and July corn all ended the week 2 cents lower. The funds ended the week short 74,596 corn and long 14,794 soybean contracts.

Late last week President Trump picked Kevin Warsh to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve which resulted in some short-term pressure on the market. Following the announcement we immediately saw strengthening of the US dollar, driving grain prices lower. Expectations are for Warsh to be less aggressive on rate cuts which will make the dollar stronger and make US grains less competitive.

Argentine weather has become more of a concern as radar shows a crop that has declined in the vegetative index over the last month which is expected to impact the top end yield potential. Forecasts remain dry for the next week, but extended forecasts are calling for a return to normal rain in the two-week timeslot. Brazil on the other hand has had sufficient rainfall in the growing areas resulting in improved crop conditions.

The markets have rallied from the post WASDE low, but with no indications that supplies are going to tighten in the coming year it will struggle to test the upper pre-report levels. Historically the corn market rallies in February as the market tries to hold or buy acres heading into spring. There are no indications that it needs to keep acres this year. I have run projections using 94.8 million corn acres (down 4 million from 2025), 181 bushels per acre (down 5 bpa), decreasing feed use by 100 million bushels and increasing exports by 100 million bushels, we still have a 2026/27 carryout of 1.8 billion bushels. With stocks that plentiful we should not see an acreage battle in February, and we have plenty of room to support more demand before the market needs to react.

The extremely cold weather that we have experienced recently has had some short-term impacts on the markets that could linger all season. The extreme cold resulted in ethanol plants having to reduce rate by as much 50% due to natural gas curtailments. The reduced grind cannot be made up, which will add more bushels to the balance sheet. On the export side, there have been some major disruptions to the river systems as frozen conditions and low water levels on the Illinois, Ohio and Mississippi rivers have crippled barge logistics. Barges not being able to ship or shipping lower volumes due to low water leaves a lot of bushels that don’t make it to the export market that has been a strong buyer. Everyday that these shipments fall behind is one day closer to South American harvest. Gulf logistics that are tapped out and will not be able to make up for that business later as South American competition grows later in Q1 and Q2.

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