U.S. Corn Futures Market Outlook: Bulls Need A Catalyst (we may have one)

Note the "may", it's not a lock.
December (new crop) futures settled at 355'2 in regular trade last week, here's the recent action:

 

First up, See It Market, Sept. 3:

Corn Market – Weekly Highlights

Below is a list of key happenings in the Corn market and a few fundamental takeaways that traders should be aware of.  Further below is a section focusing on my price outlook for December Corn Futures.

• Monday’s Weekly Crop Progress report showed the U.S. corn good-to-excellent rating unchanged week-on-week at 62% as of 8/27/17 versus 75% a year ago. Ratings slipped in the Eastern Corn Belt (Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio); however only by 1 to 2%. Illinois still stands out from the standpoint of now having experienced a good-to-excellent ratings decline of 10% in just the past 2 weeks. That said with the Farm Journal Pro Midwest Crop Tour just recently having taken samples from various sections of Illinois and coming back with a state yield estimate of a respectable 181 BPA (versus NASS’s forecast of 188 BPA in August), the market once again seems largely disinterested in the direction and perceived yield implications of state crop ratings.

• Final takeaway from the Farm Journal Pro Midwest Crop Tour 2017: The Tour’s final U.S. corn yield forecast for 2017/18 was 167.1 BPA, just 2.4 BPA below NASS’s August yield estimate of 169.5 BPA. And while the Tour produced a yield projection less than the USDA’s, traders were quick to point out that in 4 out of the past 5 years the Tour has underestimated the “Final” U.S. corn yield by an average of -3.45 BPA (see table below). Therefore this would suggest a Final U.S. corn yield closer to 170.0 to 170.6 BPA remains a distinct possibility. Additionally the only year the Tour overestimated the Final U.S. corn yield was in 2015; however the differential that year was a largely insignificant 0.4 BPA. That said from purely a traders point of view, statistically speaking, this would suggest the lower-end of yield expectations should now be in the 166.0 to 166.5 BPA ranges....MUCH MORE

...Will corn continue to move higher this week? Unfortunately for Corn Bulls I still see plenty of overheard fundamental price resistance going forward. Informa Economics released its revised September U.S. corn production and yield estimates on Friday of 14.123 billion bushels and 169.2 BPA respectively. Both figures were only slightly below the USDA’s August projections of 14.153 billion bushels and 169.5 BPA. However what Informa’s estimates reinforced was that talk of this year’s U.S. corn yield dropping down to 164 to 162 BPA have now been tabled. The majority is coming to the conclusion that the 2017/18 U.S. corn yield will likely fall between 167 to 170 BPA. Even the low end of that yield range would leave 2017/18 U.S corn ending stocks above 2.0 billion bushels for the second consecutive year. That doesn’t support $3.80 to $4.00 December corn futures....

And from AgWeb, Aug. 29:

Frost to Creep Into Corn Belt As Early As Sept. 6 

The growing season has been anything but normal for farmers in the Corn Belt. They have been plagued with flooding, replanting, drought, not enough heat and other issues. Following the Farm Journal Midwest Crop Tour, many farmers have been praying an early frost won’t come their way.
But it could be knocking on their door much sooner than anticipated.

On AgriTalk, meteorologist Michael Clark of BAMWX.com told host Mike Adams parts of the northern and western Corn Belt could see a “strong cold front that could get sharply colder  next week.”...MORE, including audio

...With these factors aligning, Clark said on the morning of Sept. 7, lows could fall between 34 and 39 degrees—between 15 and 18 degrees colder than normal—that would be a “legitimate threat” of an exceedingly early frost....