I last wrote about the corn futures market on Barchart on June 25, 2026, when I concluded with the following:
Resistance is at the May 2026 high of $4.8750 and the February 2025 high of $5.1875 per bushel. Since the highs tend to occur before or during the planting and growing season, and the lows often occur in the late growing season when weather conditions are clear, corn could be heading lower over the coming weeks. Given the latest WASDE report, the odds still favor the downside and a test of the August 2025 and 2024 lows.
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The new crop December CBOT corn futures were trading at $4.3850 per bushel on June 24, and while they fell to $4.2575 on June 30, the price has rallied over the past months and was near the $5.20 level as the 2026 crop year winds down and the growing season shifts to the harvest.
Corn rallies
New Crop December 2026 corn futures closed 2025 at $4.6050 per bushel. The corn futures rallied 10% to a high of $5.0650 on May 13, 2026, as the 2026 growing season got under way. However, crop progress and a decline in crude oil and gasoline prices sent December corn futures 15.9% lower to a low of $4.2575 per bushel on June 30, where they found a bottom and rose to a new 2026 high.
The daily chart of new-crop December CBOT corn futures shows the 29.13% rally that took them to their latest high of $5.4975 per bushel on September 2.
The monthly continuous CBOT corn futures chart shows that corn futures have rallied to their highest price since July 2023, breaking above technical resistance at the February 2025 high of $5.1875 per bushel.
The August WASDE was bullish. Teucrium highlights tight carryout
The USDA’s August World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates Report told the corn market the following:
Source: USDA August 2026 WASDE Report The USDA reduced U.S. and global ending stocks, and increased its forecast for the season-average corn price.
Teucrium, the firm that administers the CORN ETF that tracks a portfolio of three corn futures contracts, has the following analysis of the August WASDE report:
Source: Teucrium The critical takeaway is that “the corn carryout is the tightest in over a decade.”
High energy prices could continue to push corn prices higher
The United States is the world’s leading corn-producing country and is also the world’s leading exporter of corn, exporting 38.7% of total corn exports in 2025.
In the U.S., corn is the primary ingredient in ethanol production. The U.S. mandates a gasoline ethanol blend to reduce emissions. Therefore, rising crude oil and gasoline prices put upward pressure on corn demand and corn prices.
Ongoing hostilities in the Middle East, including blockages in critical logistical routes at the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab Strait and attacks on oil production and refining in the region, have raised supply fears and lifted energy prices. As corn is food and fuel and the primary additive in RBOB gasoline, higher oil and oil product prices have lifted corn demand and prices in 2026.
Levels to watch in the new-crop December CBOT corn futures contract
Since corn prices have risen to the highest level since 2023, the long-term chart highlights the critical support and resistance levels over the coming weeks and months.
The quarterly continuous contract corn chart shows that critical technical support now stands at $3.92 per bushel, the August 2025 low. Since corn broke above the early 2025 high of $5.1875 per bushel, the next upside target is the Q3 2022 low of $5.6175.
Crude oil and oil product prices, and the tightening corn balance sheet, will determine the path of least resistance of corn prices through the 2026 harvest and beyond into the 2027 crop year.
Corn’s futures curve is in contango, with higher progressive prices out to July 2027. Contango suggests market sentiment expects higher future prices, but nearby supplies are sufficient to satisfy nearby demand.
The CORN ETF tracks a portfolio of CBOT corn prices
The most direct route for exposure to the corn market is the CBOT futures and futures options. Futures are leveraged products that require specialized accounts. The leverage comes from margin requirements. Each corn contract contains 5,000 bushels. At $5.3675 per bushel, the contract value is $26,837.50. The CME’s CBOT division’s original margin requirement is $1,575 per contract, meaning a market participant can control one CBOT corn futures contract for a 5.87% down payment. However, if equity falls below $1,050 per contract, the exchange requires maintenance margin payments. The leverage comes from the margin.
The Teucrium Corn ETF (CORN) provides market participants seeking corn exposure with an alternative to the futures market. CORN holds three actively traded CBOT corn futures contracts, excluding the nearby contract. Since the nearby contract attracts the most speculative interest, most volatility tends to occur in the nearby contract. Therefore, CORN tends to underperform nearby corn futures on the upside and outperform the nearby contract on the downside.
At $20.07 per share, CORN had approximately $191.066 million in assets under management. CORN trades an average of over 530,000 contracts per day and charges a 0.61% management fee.
The latest rally in nearby CBOT corn futures took the price 33.3% higher, from $4.1250 on June 8, 2026, to $5.4975 per bushel on September 2, 2026.
The CORN ETF's performance does not exactly match nearby corn futures, but the ETF rallied 24.88% from $16.36 on June 30 to $20.43 per share on September 2. CORN underperformed continuous corn futures over the period, as speculative interest in the nearby corn futures contract drove higher volatility than the deferred contracts.
With the 2026 harvest on the horizon, corn remains in a bullish trend. A continuation of hostilities in the Middle East that keeps energy prices high or pushes them higher, along with continued tightness in corn’s balance sheet, could mean we have not seen the 2026 high in corn prices in late August. The next upside target is around the $5.60 per bushel level on the nearby futures contract.
On the date of publication, Andrew Hecht did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
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