Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) corn futures ended lower on Friday after the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) forecast of US corn stockpiles left at the end of the 2019-20 marketing year was larger than expected, traders said. CBOT July corn settled down 1-1/2 cents at $3.51-3/4 per bushel after recording a life-of-contract low at $3.45-1/2.
For the week, the July contract fell 19 cents a bushel or 5.1 percent, its fourth decline in the last five weeks. The front seven CBOT corn futures contracts all set life-of-contract lows on Friday, along with the deferred September 2021 contract. The USDA projected 2019/20 US corn ending stocks at 2.485 billion bushels, which would be the largest domestic inventory since 1987-88.
The USDA estimated 2019 corn production at 15.030 billion bushels, the second-biggest crop on record if realized, based on an average yield of 176.0 bushels per acre.