Column: Funds Continue Record Corn Sell-Off, Turn Bearish For First Time Since 2020

By Karen Braun

Speculators have drastically shifted their stance in Chicago-traded corn within the last month, selling much more heavily than expected and finally establishing a net short position last week.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday afternoon published its Commitments of Traders (CoT) report for the week ended March 14. CoT data has been on delayed release for over a month, but it will be current on Friday if CFTC makes its regularly scheduled publication.

Money managers were net sellers of more than 75,000 CBOT corn futures and options contracts in the week ended March 14, establishing a net short of 54,134 contracts, their first bearish stance since August 2020.

Funds had held a net long of 215,928 corn futures and options contracts on Feb. 21, but they have actively added gross shorts and exited gross longs ever since, resulting in a record three-week sell-off of more than 270,000 contracts on the net – equivalent to 1.35 billion bushels.