While it feels like both only yesterday and an eternity ago, this year marks the ten year anniversary of the 2014 crop year, one of those years in my career that will forever live rent free in my head. 

While I struggle to remember the exact set up in the markets that year, I will forever remember 2014 because it was the year we failed to see a summer rally. You see, the best part about giving advice for a living as someone who is hyper-critical of themselves is that you forever remember the years you felt like you really blew it, and 2014 was one of those years for me.

2014 started out with a lower pricing structure than 2024 has, with the December contract that year trading around $4.50 in January. Of course, we were coming off a rebuilding year after 2013, a year marked by a sharp drop in price into the end of the calendar year, falling from over $5.50 the previous summer to the low $4.00 level at harvest. 

I remember vividly some of the conversations I had with growers that spring about pricing targets and what they should be doing with their bushels. Like this year, many were shell shocked by the epic drop in price that year, especially in the face of still rising costs and were uncertain of what to do next. 

I, like many in my position that year, looked at the historical tendency of corn to rally into the summer months. A summertime rally happens more often than it doesn’t, something that I discuss in depth in this articleI wrote on the subject nearly a year ago.  

Corn almost always has a summer rally, this much I told my growers as we took a relaxed approach to pricing and to orders that year, waiting to see just where prices would head when adverse weather hit, and the market started to run.

2014 proved to be the exception to the rule though. The run in price that spring was fueled by a combination of shrinking old crop ending stocks and worries over planting delays, allowing us to hit a high of around $5.15 on May 9th, the Friday before Mother’s Day, only to turn around that day and close 13 cents lower on the back of a drier forecast. 

The drier forecast provided enough of an opportunity to get the bulk of the crop in the ground without issue. The moisture returned just in time to help the US produce a new record yield that year, outpacing that year’s trendline yield by over 6 bushels per acre. This put to rest any worries of a long term supply shortage and pushed December corn to a harvest low of $3.21 before it was able to recover slightly into November.

I don’t bring this up to be depressing or to say we won’t see a summer rally this year, because I honestly have no clue—but I do bring it up because it taught me a valuable marketing lesson—in years like these it is far better for growers to focus on price, selling at the levels they know are profitable and protecting with options if needed, rather than focusing on what the date says on the calendar or insisting the market *has* to do something. 

While like I said, I don’t believe we see a repeat of 2014, you better believe I am working hard each day to get my growers set up with a marketing plan, which includes entering solid pricing orders at the levels we know we need to accomplish. I would say it will likely help others to get a solid foundation for their marketing plan established if they haven’t done so already.

What Else I Am Watching

• The situation in Ukraine is worsening with more attacks reported on export infrastructure and freight corridors. Experts have been warning for weeks a drop in air defense due to a lack of funding would result in Russia hitting more critical infrastructure targets and we are starting to see the result of that now. Over the weekend the US House passed a funding bill which may be able to help the air defense situation though some experts say it may be too late to make a major difference. 

• Weather. Brazil is turning drier to finish their Safrinha crop. While much of the crop is relatively made, we could see the top end taken off with a dry finish, that will be something to watch. Here in the US above normal precipitation looks to remain in place in the 16-30 day period. It is still early yet, but this remains something to watch, especially in parts of the Eastern Corn Belt and Delta. Summer heat is commonplace in extended forecasts as well, giving me a bit of a pause ahead of the growing season. 

• Chinese demand. We continue to wait for signs China is coming back into the market for cash grains. Rumors they were looking to cancel Ukrainian corn purchases had weighed heavily on the markets coming into April but appears those cancellations may have been minimal. 

• Fund positioning/money flow. Speculators were aggressive sellers of ags again last week, marking one of their biggest weeks of selling in a year. When do we see short covering? With the Northern Hemisphere farmer in the fields and disengaged grower selling could be limited to start making for interesting market moves if funds were to decide to lift. 

As always, don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions! Have a great week.