USDA Report Expected to Drive Corn Price Reversal

Corn futures fell sharply in mid-week trading, with September contracts dropping to $5.0775 per bushel and December contracts falling to $5.2775.

The decline was driven by technical selling and profit-taking ahead of the USDA's WASDE report, which is expected to lower the national corn yield estimate by 2.5 bushels per acre.

Specialists surveyed ahead of the report expect the agency to revise its production expectations, putting them at the center of the market's next major price test.

The weakness was not confined to corn, with November soybean futures dropping 6.75 cents to $13.0950 per bushel and winter wheat suffering even steeper losses.