Market Report: Corn and Beans Lower Friday

Corn had a tough day Friday, closing down about 7 cents a bushel. That was the lowest close for the year, plus corn lost about 18 cents for the week. Federal Chairman Janet Yellin indicated the Federal Reserve may increase interest rates in their September meeting, and that had the dollar index trading higher. Pro Farmer released the results of their crop tour coming up with a corn yield estimate of 170.2 bushels an acre. That was about 5 bushels an acre below the USDA August estimate. You would think that would be friendly but traders say the yield will be much higher because Pro Farmer always comes up with bullish estimates.

It was not much better in beans Friday as beans lost about 8 cents a bushel. For the week, beans lost about 37 cents a bushel. On the positive side, beans did hold the bottom end of the bullish channel. Pro Farmer released their bean crop estimate Friday at 49.3 bushels an acre which was very close to the USDA estimate of 48.9 bushels an acre. It is very interesting that traders accept the Pro Farmer bean estimate but not the corn. The bean number is bearish but they do not believe the bullish corn number!