USDA will release on Friday morning (7.30 AM Chicago time) its latest estimates of supply and demand conditions for grain and livestock. The report will likely account for the significant news that have developed since it last released this report back in June. Probably the most important change will be the expected upward revision in the number of acres planted with corn but also changes to old crop ending stocks based on the quarterly numbers published at the end of June.

Plenty of rainfall has been supportive of corn growing conditions, especially in the Western Corn Belt and this may lead USDA to raise its yield estimates for the new crop. Crop progress is behind in some areas, which is to be expected given the late planting so that also is a factor in coming up with yield estimates.

There is a wide range of estimates as to how the new 2009/10 balance table will look like, depending in large part on whether market participants really believe the June Acreage report, how good yields will be, and also how the demand picture will unfold. The latter is important but will likely not be the focus until after the harvest is completed.

We have tried to illustrate the wide range of opinions in this matter in the attached chart, which shows the average of pre-report estimates in red and a box signifying the range of analysts pre-report guesses. Below is summary of prereport estimates from a Dow Jones survey of 15 analysts: