Corn Pushed Gains into the Weekend as Specs Expand Length

Corn futures held onto the Friday gains into the close, with contracts settling 1 to 4 cents higher. September rallied 28 ¼ cents on the week, with December 28 cents. The CmdtyView national average Cash Corn price was back up 2 1/4 cents at $4.84 1/4.

Friday’s CFTC data showed managed money in corn futures and options adding a total of 126,008 contracts to their net long as of August 25. That net long was tallied at 376,513 contracts, which was the largest since April 2022, but still over 52,000 contracts shy of the Tuesday record going back to 2006.  Specs held a total of 465,500 contracts of outright longs by Tuesday, the largest on record.

Export Sales data shows corn commitments for 2025/26 at 87.758 MMT, which is 102% of the USDA export projection and in line with last year’s sale pace, The marketing year ends on Monday.  Accumulated sales new crop for 2026/27 were are at 12.458 MMT, which is down 33.6% from the same week a year ago, but still the 4^th largest for the current week going back 30 years. 

Safras & Mercado estimates the 2026/27 Brazilian corn crop at 145.6 MMT, a 0.6 MMT increase from their previous number and well above the current 139 MMT USDA estimate.

Sep 26 Corn  closed at $5.12, up 1 3/4 cents,

Nearby Cash  was $4.84 1/4, up 2 1/4 cents,

Dec 26 Corn  closed at $5.36 1/2, up 3 cents,

Mar 27 Corn  closed at $5.51 1/4, up 4 cents,

New Crop Cash  was $4.88 1/2, up 3 3/4 cents,

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