08/12/24 Afternoon CommStock Report – August USDA Crop Production and WASDE Reports

The 2024 crop season will be difficult to analog with any other. It is unique. Characteristics include very diverse regional crop conditions and a slow to respond demand response to lower prices. It is not all economics driven as geopolitics is impacting market forces. Such influence is impossible to predict. USDA gets to make the big decisions which the market then leverages into its price discovery. The trade had expectations for a much higher corn yield this year and USDA confirms an above trend record yield of 183.1 bpa. This was higher than the average trade estimate by 1 bpa but well within the trade range of yield estimates. I think the dog caught the car in respect to trade expectations for corn in August reports. This record yield was held back by a thousand cuts from small wounds from late planting, flood, drought, hail, and derecho but that did not subtract enough to negate the record crop.   USDA reduced corn planted acreage by 800K and harvested acreage by 700k acres. The net of a 2.1 bpa higher yield from July to August reports, balanced against 700k fewer harvested acres, resulted in just a 47 mln bushel increase in…