NAPERVILLE, Illinois, May 1 (Reuters) - U.S. farmers are now in the thick of corn-planting, a period usually filled with anticipation for the upcoming harvest potential.

But the markets may not be bringing much joy to producers given that new-crop Chicago corn futures started May on the lowest note in five years.

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The U.S. growing season just began and there is plenty of time for weather concerns to pop up, though May can be a difficult time for corn to sustain any strength when planting is running as smoothly as it has been this year.

New-crop December corn settled at $4.47-1/4 per bushel on Thursday, nearly 5% below last month’s high and almost 7% below the year-to-date high set in February.

But $4.70 should still be in play.

STREAK IN JEOPARDY

December corn futures averaged $4.70 per bushel during February, which represents the 2025 insurance guarantee for U.S. farmers.

Since at least 1973, December corn futures have never failed to return to their average February levels at some point after February, meaning new-crop corn likely still has upside of at least 5%.

The contract came close to achieving the feat on April 16, topping at $4.69-1/2.

Historically, there are some opportunities for strength in May. In seven of the last 10 Mays, December corn futures boasted a higher average than during April.

But the month’s trend is generally downward. In seven of the last 10 years, new-crop corn settled lower at the end of May versus the month’s first session.

The three exceptions were the mega-delayed U.S. planting of 2019, the harsh Brazilian corn drought of 2016 and the pandemic in 2020, just after new-crop corn hit its lowest springtime levels in 14 years.

It is hard to excite the corn market over U.S. weather issues before June. But prices can nosedive in late June if forecasts look non-threatening through early July, when U.S. corn begins the critical pollination period.

At the end of last June, new-crop corn was 11% lower than at the beginning of May. Although those losses are a bit larger than normal, a similar move this year would put corn just below $4 by the end of June.

2025 TWIN?

Throughout 2023, market participants compared U.S. corn price trends with those from 2013, and a year later they did the same with 2024 and 2014. For the most part, these were relatively good analog years because of similar fundamental setups.

But what about 2025? Logical progression might suggest 2015, though U.S. corn ending stocks 10 years ago were set to rise sharply from the previous year but slightly shrink into the next one. That is the opposite of this year’s likely trajectory.

In terms of actual prices, December 2025 corn is trading most closely with the year-ago ones, though the trends have been very different directionally.

Percentage moves since the beginning of the year track most closely with 2016, 2017 or even 2018. Those years were characterized by plentiful U.S. corn supplies – significantly more than today – and 2018 similarly featured a trade war with China.

All three of those years contained a brief summer weather rally with futures eventually moving notably lower as U.S. harvest neared, which is the commonly expected pattern.

At the broader level, 2025 is unlike any other year, with U.S. economic policy uncertainty near all-time highs. This complicates price-forecasting since seasonal patterns may be less reliable.

But the geopolitical wild cards on the table for 2025 could act to enhance impacts from standard forces like weather, meaning that the markets could be in for a wild ride during the peak U.S. growing season.

Karen Braun is a market analyst for Reuters. Views expressed above are her own.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/chicago-corn-still-chasing-50-year-streak-prices-stagnate-braun-2025-05-01/