Overnight corn trading has futures 1/2 to 1 cent lower ahead of the Export Sales report. At the closing bell on Wednesday, front month corn futures were 2 3/4 to 3 1/2 cents in the green. Some bottom picking buying was noted, with preliminary open interest up 2,781 contracts. Basis was 26 cents under Sept, according to cmdtyView, a little weaker. Traders anticipate USDA’s weekly update to Export Sales to show between 100-600k MT of old crop sales. New crop sales are estimated between 2.0 and 2.6 MMT for the week ending July 30 due to previously announced business. Ethanol production averaged 931,000 barrels per day last week according to EIA data. That was down 27k bpd from the week prior. Ethanol stocks ticked 74k barrels higher to 20.346 million barrels. Ethanol FOB prices according to U.S. Grains Council were 5.1% weaker at $1.275/gal. Official June ethanol exports were 78.5m gallons, which was the lowest June shipment pace since 2016. June DDGS exports were 883,193 MT. That was up 47% from May but 8% below June ’19. CENSUS data had corn exports at 5.035 MMT for June. That was down from May, but up 70% yr/yr.

--- provided by Brugler Marketing & Management