On January 10, 2025, trade fell expectant of a bombshell from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s biggest yearly corn report.
The bombshell is the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report, which traders consult for trade direction.
This year’s first WASDE comes when corn is performing well due to positive market sentiments despite a whopping 2024 harvest.
If USDA presents a lower corn tally than that of November 2024, it would again buoy corn, reports Reuters.
Such a reserve devaluation would be the consecutive one in the past seven months, and would continually support prices.
But trade is on its toes this time, reminiscent that overconfident predictions in the January 2024 WASDE report actually brought negative impacts. While traders had forecasted lower yields and strong markets, WASDE surprisingly indicated increasing yield rates.
Late 2024 has smiled upon corn, with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) ending the year with a 12% price gain.
On their part, speculators now are more confident than ever and are predicting a lower-yield report. A part of their bullish sentiment stems from the fact that the grain has overcome actual surplus to still trade at top price.
Increasing monthly demand for corn ethanol and rising corn exports have helped eat into harvest surplus and support sales.
This is why despite a bumper harvest, the last estimate for end-year corn stocks put U.S. reserves at 1.7 billion bushels. The earlier estimate in November had been 200 million bushels higher.
WASDE would be live this Friday at 8.30 eastern standard time, and its real impact on markets will land on Monday.
But on January 9, WASDE-expectant trade caused CBOT’s daily corn prices to slide 0.9%, to $4.54 a bushel.
This price nearly mirrors USDA’s current farm gate price average of $4.10 a bushel, per its December 10, 2024 report.
Therefore, it is corn versus WASDE, with the top question being how the impactful report will change current price strengths. To learn more on past WASDEs, read on the below statistics.
Corn WASDE Statistics
Each month, USDA releases the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE), which estimates grain and world food reserves. The January report is usually the most definitive, with impactful examples being the 2022, 2023 and 2024 reports:
2022: the January 2022 WASDE corn report had a generally neutral effect on the markets. This is because it only increased total American reserves for the 2021-22 year by 52 million bushels, to 16.375 billion bushels. Ending stocks were also high at 39.11 million tonnes, reflecting trade’s expectations.
2023: U.S.’ ending corn stocks from 2022 were at 31.54 million tonnes while 2023’s beginning stocks were up to 34.98 million tonnes. This was below trade estimates, however, which helped buoy prices early that year.
2024: the January 2024 WASDE put ending 2023 stocks at 34.55 million tonnes, with beginning stocks higher at 34.98 million tonnes. With yields also up to 177.3 bushels per acre, this WASDE surplus forecast immediately negatively impacted market prices.