World Corn Supplies Shrink
By Bryce Knorr, Farm Futures
USDA cut its forecast of for U.S. corn inventories Oct. 9 less than many in the trade expected. Still, the reductions were enough to help nearby futures to their best level in a year, taking the December contract within a penny of $4.
To be sure, corn caught a draft from a surging soybean market, after the government slashed its forecast of the oilseed’s projected 2020 crop carryout below 300 million bushels. But corn also benefited from another page of the report, USDA’s projections for world supplies. While prices U.S. farmers receive reflect what happens here, corn is a global market too. Over the last decade prices tracked the world situation even more closely than domestic supply and demand.