11/01/2023 As Nov. 9 WASDE Approaches, History Little Help Guessing Yield Changes Likely

On the Grains: Grains are mixed in overnight trade thus far, with corn mostly steady, beans on the weak side and wheat futures firmer. The Fed comes out today with their latest reading on the economy. Almost nobody expects a rate hike, but still a “hawkish” tone that further hikes “might” be necessary and no hint whatever of any let-up in rates until well into 2024 at the earliest. Fairly open harvest weather into next week should keep speeding along towards the finish line. My daily check of national average basis shows that after yesterday’s close, corn basis was steady, soybean basis improved by nearly 4 cents and wheat basis for HRW, SRW and HRS improved by 1 cent, 2 cents and 4 cents, respectively. We’ll soon be in the trade’s monthly guessing game as to what USDA might do with yield forecasts in the next crop report and WASDE. They come out in the Nov. 9. WASDE report. History isn’t very helpful. In corn there have been 14 times since 1970 that yields were cut in both September and October. In November, it went down further in seven of those years, higher in six and one year unchanged. In…