Ag econ - research - consultant - speaker. dad of 4 - Purdue BSME & MS Ag Econ, IU MBA - tweets are mine & not advice - prez @thebrockreport.
Mequon, WI
Joined March 2011
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I usually try to be nice....
But there's an advisory group that has corn yield coming in at 173.2 bpa, and carryout at 1.709.
Genuinely, have to be on drugs.
Soybean exports are +76% vs. last year, and +13% vs 5 year average.
Obviously due to China's massive purchases. Just look at that!
Unfortunately, sales to the next 4 largest buyers are down.
In the last 16 trading days, corn has managed to take out the previous days high only 2 times.
The good news is futures appear to be consolidating here, and not much damage was done to the board price last week.
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CFTC COT...JFC
Corn specs are now net short this market.
On September 15th, they were net long 291,953 contracts F&O combined
The livestock market appears to be pricing in an impending global financials crisis
crude up 2%
rbob up 3%
QQQ down 3%
ES down 1.6%
Trump & Vance cancelling weekend appearances ahead of mid terms
Good luck everybody
US Sep PCE inflation, the Fed's preferred inflation metric, rises to 3.6%.
Core PCE (Shown below) inflation also rose to 3.1%, up +0.3% month-over-month.
CPI, PPI, and PCE inflation are all on the rise.
My bet is a Dec rate hike is on the way.
This is GREAT!
The COT provides market participant positioning, and can signal when a trend is likely to continue or shift. But it's not a timing tool.
And I write a COT newsletter, that's going to remain once a week for sure
Data still delayed too much for 2026
Reuters just reports the USDA says the September corn data was effected by errors of some sort.
October data all good.
Farmers are gonna love this story, buried on a Friday afternoon no less.
This position washout in corn continued this week as futures collapse.
- Specs are net sellers of 63k contracts
- Index funds are net sellers of 17k.
The two groups combine for a net selling of 301,715 contracts over the last 5 weeks. That's over 1.5 billion bushels.
Corn export sales rebounding nicely, now higher for 3 consecutive weeks. And its needed.
Shipments were shit this week but on pace with last year still.
Sales are below the 5 year as shown below, putting us on pace to fall WELL BELOW USDA target, though it's still very early
Fabulous week of export sales reported this morning, led of course by China.
The last time soybean sales exceeded this week's 104.4 mbu. was early November 2023
Sales are now 430 mil bu ahead of same time last year, +81%.
China has bought 494 mil bu., vs ZERO last year
#EIA Ethanol stocks surge.
- sharp rebound in production
- sharp contraction in implied ethanol demand
- stagnant but steady gas demand
- stagnant but strong exports
Where did the ethanol demand go???
Am I missing something obvious? Calculation error?
Disappointing export inspections for corn today
The story has been: export sales are slow, but inspections (measure of actual exports) are still ahead of last year's record pace.
First crack in the story came today.
Seriously read this.
The Commitment of Traders report is one of the most useful, and simultaneously under-used reports.
Its available every week, guides a lot of my thoughts and our company recs.
This weeks: brockreport.com/commitment-o…
September Warning: brockreport.com/commitment-o…
Important week, moved our COT analysis outside the paywall:
brockreport.com/commitment-o…
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If you EVER read about the Commitment of Traders report, I'd recommend doing it this week.
(outside of paywall)
brockreport.com/commitment-o…
Absolute washout in corn.
In the last 4 weeks large speculators have been net sellers of 177,411 contracts of corn
What's even more concerning is they've been building new short positions.
ie. they're not just exiting longs, see more downside ahead
Important week, moved our COT analysis outside the paywall:
brockreport.com/commitment-o…