Corn futures were busy squaring up on Wednesday as the market ignored the US record large ethanol production number. Contracts closed with fractional to 1 ¾ cent losses. The front month CmdtyView national average Cash Corn price was down 1 ¾ cents at $4.13 1/2.

The weekly EIA report showed ethanol production at a record 1.12 million barrels per day in the week of June 6. That was up 15,000 bpd from the week prior. Stocks of ethanol saw a draw of 706,000 barrels to 23.734 million barrels. Ethanol exports were 151,000 barrels per day, a slight increase from the week prior. Refiner inputs of ethanol were up 3,000 barrels per day to 905,000 bpd.

Weekly Export Sales data will be released on Thursday morning, with the trade looking for 0.7-1.2 MMT of 2024/25 corn sold in the week ending on June 5. New crop sales are estimated at 0-200,000 MT. 

Ahead of Thursday's USDA report, analysts are expecting to see old crop US ending stocks cut by 23 million bushels to 1.392 billion bushels. We will also get an updated new crop estimate, with the average trade guests according to a Bloomberg survey at 1.789 bbu, which is down 11 mbu from last month. Estimates for Brazil’s production total are 131.8 MMT, which would be up 1.8 MMT from last month if realized, with Argentina seen steady at 49.9 MMT.

A Taiwan importer purchased 65,000 MT of corn overnight, expected to originate from Brazil.

Jul 25 Corn  closed at $4.37, down 1 3/4 cents,

Nearby Cash  was $4.13 1/2, down 1 3/4 cents,

Sep 25 Corn  closed at $4.25 1/4, down 1/4 cent,

Dec 25 Corn  closed at $4.39 3/4, down 1/4 cent,

New Crop Cash  was $3.97 1/8, down 1/4 cent,