Soybean futures tumbled from 17-month highs and corn futures also dropped sharply after USDA crop production and yield numbers, the agency’s first updates in over two months, failed to live up to bullish expectations built into the market during recent rallies.
In its November Crop Production report, USDA lowered its estimate for the average U.S. corn yield less than expected, to 186 bushels per acre from 186.7 bpa in September. Analysts expected the yield to come in closer to 184 bpa.
Soybean numbers on the surface appeared more bullish, or at least not particularly bearish. USDA trimmed its average U.S. yield estimate to 53 bpa, down from 53.5 bpa in September and slightly lower than expected.
“Many analysts were looking for a drop to yields in both corn and soybeans,” said Tyler Schau, a partner at AgMarket.Net. “We saw drops, however, not nearly to the extent many were looking for on corn.”
“Buy-rumor, sell-fact” effect soybeans
Schau said soybeans may have factored much of the bullish implications of today’s reports with the steep rally of the past month. January futures soared as much as $1.28 since mid-October, in part on hopes a U.S.-China trade truce reached late last month will fuel renewed Chinese demand.
“There was a little bit of a ‘buy the rumor, sell the fact’ phenomenon in both corn and beans, and a lot of optimism driven by expectations for lower yields and China business,” Schau said. He cautioned that today’s market losses don’t necessarily spell the end of the recent rallies, as it’s possible yields could be revised even lower in subsequent USDA reports.
“If you look at state-level yield data as reported by the USDA, we feel it is too early to say that highs are in” for corn or soybeans, Schau said. “There seems to be a lot of variability in yields in some important states, notably, Iowa and Illinois. More fireworks for December and January WASDE reports are likely.”
Near the close of trading, December corn futures fell 11.25 cents to $4.3025, down from a five-month closing high on Thursday. January soybeans plunged 24 cents to $11.23, down from a 17-month high of $11.5225 posted overnight. December SRW wheat sank 8.75 cents to $5.27.
The following are summaries of key figures in today’s USDA reports:
Corn production up 12% from last year
USDA also lowered its estimate for the 2025 U.S. corn harvest less than expected with a cut of 62 million bushels to 16.752 billion bushels, clashing with expectations for a reduction of over 250 million bushels. Both the new yield and production figures remain records. Based on today’s figure, this year’s crop is up 1.86 billion bushels, or over 12%, from 2024’s crop.
The corn numbers underscored the bearish implications of a massive crop and an outlook for a heavy supply overhang next year, despite record exports and otherwise strong demand.
In its Supply and Demand report also released today, USDA boosted its forecast for corn stockpiles at the end of the 2025-26 marketing year by 44 million bushels to 2.154 billion bushels, lower than analysts projected but still a seven-year high, which is tied for a record.
Exports for 2025-26 were raised 100 million bushels to 3.075 billion bushels, while ethanol demand was kept unchanged at 5.6 billion bushels.
Soybeans stocks lower than expected
In addition to the average yield, today’s reports included other price-friendly figures. USDA lowered estimated U.S. soybean production more than expected, with a reduction of 48 million bushels to 4.253 billion bushels. Analysts on average expected a drop of about 35 million bushels.
U.S. soybean stocks at the end of 2025-26 were lowered 10 million bushels to 290 million bushels, a three-year low. Analysts were looking for a slight increase of about 4 million bushels.
But USDA undercut bullish sentiment with a few other numbers, including a 50-million-bushel reduction in 2025-26 U.S. exports, to 1.635 billion bushels, a 13-year low.
USDA also hiked the 2024-25 Brazilian soybean crop 1.5% to a record 171.5 million metric tons, or 6.3 billion bushels. In 2025-26, USDA expects Brazil’s crop to expand another 2% to 175 MMT.
Also today, USDA also released a backlog of so-called flash sale announcements from October 1 through November 12, with 4.915 MMT reported as large sales (exceeding 100,000 MT). Of that total, 4.367 MMT was for the 2025-26 marketing year and 548,640 MT for 2026-27.
The following are summaries of key figures in today’s USDA reports:
