In the past 17 years, the corn market has had five summer rallies in July: 2010, 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2020. And digging deeper, Naomi Blohm with Total Farm Marketing says this year is the year to dig into historical trends and recalibrate expectations so you can maximize opportunities.
Smaller Spikes, Quicker Falls
Excluding the rally in 2012 due to the widespread drought, the other four years had their rallies inch higher around the July WASDE report. USDA will release this year’s July WASDE report on Friday, July 11.
“It was a fast rally some of those years, and the rallies only amounted to 25 or 30 cents when you’re looking back to years where we had higher projected carryout,” Blohm says. “But the theme was the same — the rally occurred, and then after the July WASDE, the market had the reality of a seasonal sell-off lower into August.”
The Current Market
Blohm says this week started much like a recent trend — lower on Monday, but as the week progresses, the markets tip higher into the weekend.
“We can see this pattern continue, where we have a low push on Monday for prices, and then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday prices kind of claw back and maybe we get some sort of friendly news on Friday — could come from tighter beginning stocks on corn, which then lends into lower carry in for the following year,” she says.
Other Market Movers
In addition to the WASDE report data on supply, Blohm says any clues on demand are market drivers. Those include any updates on trade and biofuels production, but in addition to those two fronts, weather will be key.
“President Trump’s speech in Iowa just didn’t have any big, fresh demand news for farmers in terms of exports or anything new above and beyond on the biofuels front,” she says. “There’s still a lot of summer weather ahead of us. The Iowa farmers that I talked to, they’re so excited because the crop looks good, but those are the same folks that dealt with derecho, and they’re nervous. They just want to make it through the summer without anything disastrous happening.”
