Corn traded about unchanged all day Wednesday and closed with gains of a fraction. It seems like traders are waiting for the USDA numbers Friday at 11AM. The average trade guess is for a national corn yield of about 171 bushels an acre. The July USDA estimate was at 168 bushels an acre. For a while this summer it seemed like in traders' minds the corn crop was huge and getting bigger. Now there are some analysts thinking the high temperatures in July may have pulled the yield lower. One pointed out that if the national average yield is only 5 or 6 bushels an acre lower than 171, it would have a very big impact on carryover and prices.

Bean traders seemed to be waiting for the numbers Friday too but beans did close with losses of about 6 cents. The weather forecast is calling for a little more rain and that likely pushed beans a little lower. Wednesday was the first time in 10 days there was not an export sales announcement for beans. I did read on Pro Farmer that the funds sold 5,000 contracts Wednesday or 25 million bushels. The weekly export sales report will be released this morning and with all the daily sales announcements the weekly total should be a big number.

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