The WASDE is the most important monthly report in agricultural futures. This is your complete guide to reading it, finding the data, and trading around the release — including a live walkthrough of the June 2026 corn balance sheet.
If you trade corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, or sugar futures, there is one report that shapes your entire month. Not a Fed meeting. Not a jobs number. Not a GDP print. The World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report — the WASDE — is the single most important piece of data in agricultural markets, published once a month by the United States Department of Agriculture. When it lands, markets move. When it surprises, they can move violently.
This guide covers everything you need to know: what the WASDE is, what it actually contains, when it releases, where to find the data, how to read the key numbers, and how experienced traders approach the release. We will also cover the Grain Stocks report — a separate quarterly release that most beginners overlook and that can be just as market-moving as the WASDE itself.
What the WASDE Actually Is
The World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report has been published monthly since 1973. It is produced by the World Agricultural Outlook Board, a unit within the USDA, which coordinates inputs from multiple USDA agencies including the Economic Research Service, the Foreign Agricultural Service, the Farm Service Agency, and the National Agricultural Statistics Service.
The report provides annual supply and demand forecasts — not just for the United States, but for the entire world — covering the following commodity categories:
What makes the WASDE different from most economic reports is that it does not just look backward. It provides forward-looking forecasts for the entire marketing year — typically running from September through August for corn and soybeans. Each monthly release updates those forecasts based on new data: actual harvest results, export figures, weather adjustments, and foreign production revisions. The market is constantly repricing against those updates.
The 2026 Release Schedule
The WASDE is released on a fixed schedule, announced at the start of each year. In 2026, releases are scheduled for January 12, February 10, March 10, April 9, May 12, June 11, July 10, August 12, September 11, October 9, November 10, and December 10 — always at 12:00 PM Eastern Time. Mark the ones that matter most to you on your calendar now. They do not move unless there is a federal holiday conflict.
Not every monthly WASDE is equally important. The significance of each report depends on where you are in the agricultural calendar:
| Month | Why it matters | Impact level |
|---|---|---|
| May | First supply and demand estimates for the new crop marketing year. Sets the baseline that everything else is measured against for the next 12 months. | Very high |
| August | First field survey-based yield estimates for corn and soybeans replace the model forecasts. Often the largest single price-moving WASDE of the year. | Very high |
| September | Updated yield estimates as harvest begins. Confirms or contradicts the August numbers. | Very high |
| January | Final production estimates for the previous crop year. Closes out the marketing year with definitive numbers. | High |
| Jun, Jul, Oct, Nov | Monthly updates to existing forecasts. Important for tracking revisions and trade data. | Moderate |
| Feb, Mar, Apr | Quiet months. Minimal new crop data. Market often in a holding pattern. | Lower |
The Quarterly Report You Also Need to Know About
Many traders new to agricultural markets focus entirely on the WASDE and miss a separate quarterly report that can be just as market-moving: the Grain Stocks report, published by NASS (National Agricultural Statistics Service) four times a year in March, June, September, and January.
Where the WASDE provides estimates and forecasts, the Grain Stocks report measures actual physical inventory — how many bushels of corn, soybeans, and wheat are sitting in storage right now, on farms and in commercial facilities across the United States. When those actual numbers differ significantly from what traders expected, the reaction can be sharp and immediate.
A recent example from September 2025 illustrates this well. When the quarterly stocks report landed, corn stocks came in at 1.53 billion bushels — almost 200 million bushels above the average trade guess. Grain prices slumped immediately. The market had been positioned for tighter supplies. The actual inventory data proved them wrong, and the repricing was instant.
If you are trading grain or oilseed futures, block out the Grain Stocks dates alongside the WASDE. They are equally important and often more surprising.
Where to Find the Data
The WASDE is publicly available free of charge on the USDA website at usda.gov. The report is posted at exactly 12:00 PM ET on release day. That sounds straightforward. In practice it is slightly more complicated.
The USDA website can be slow to load in the seconds immediately following a major release, when thousands of traders are hitting the same page simultaneously. The PDF itself runs to 40 pages. Finding the specific numbers you need quickly — before the market has fully moved — takes practice.
Professional traders typically access the WASDE through Bloomberg or Reuters terminals, which display the key numbers in a formatted table the moment they are available — no PDF hunting required. If you are trading seriously around the release and you have terminal access, use it. If you do not, the USDA website works fine but you will need to know exactly where to look in the PDF before you open it.
The key tables are in the first 10 pages. The US supply and use tables for each commodity come first, followed by the world tables. If you trade corn, go straight to the US Feed Grains table. If you trade soybeans, go to US Oilseeds. The number you want is in the “Ending Stocks” row at the bottom of each balance sheet.
How to Read the WASDE: The Number That Actually Matters
The WASDE is a dense document. It runs to dozens of pages of tables covering supply, demand, trade, and price projections across multiple crops and dozens of countries. For most traders, the vast majority of it is background noise. There is one number that matters more than any other: ending stocks.
Ending stocks — sometimes called carry-out — is the amount of a commodity left over at the end of the marketing year after all supply has been used. It is the residual that defines tightness or abundance in the market. The relationship is direct:
The pre-report trade estimate is published by Bloomberg and LSEG (formerly Refinitiv) each month, aggregating predictions from industry analysts and traders. That consensus estimate is what futures markets are already pricing in. The WASDE’s impact comes from the deviation from that consensus — not from the number itself in isolation.
For corn and soybeans, the key ending stocks figures to watch are:
- US ending stocks — the domestic balance sheet. Most sensitive to US production and export demand.
- World ending stocks — the global balance sheet. Brazilian and Argentine production numbers have grown increasingly important over the past two decades as South America expanded its share of global soybean and corn exports.
- Stocks-to-use ratio — ending stocks as a percentage of total use. This is the most comparable measure across different crop sizes and years. A stocks-to-use ratio below 10% for corn or soybeans historically signals a tight market and supports higher prices.
Understanding Revisions — The Part Most Traders Miss
Every monthly WASDE includes revisions to the previous month’s estimates. Production numbers get updated as more harvest data comes in. Export figures are revised based on actual shipments. Foreign crop estimates are adjusted as conditions change in Brazil, Argentina, the EU, or Ukraine.
This is where traders can get confused — and where some of the best trading opportunities emerge.
You can have a situation where the new-month ending stocks number looks positive on its surface — say, corn ending stocks come in at 2.1 billion bushels, slightly below the trade estimate of 2.15 billion. That looks bullish. But buried in the same report, the USDA has revised the previous month’s export demand downward, or cut the ethanol use estimate. The net effect might be bearish even though the headline ending stocks beat expectations.
The experienced approach is to wait 5 to 10 minutes after the release before acting. In that window, the market is absorbing all of the revisions simultaneously. The initial knee-jerk reaction is often wrong — or at least incomplete. Let the first move happen, watch where the market settles, and then assess whether the revision picture supports or contradicts the initial price action. That gap between the first reaction and the settled direction is where a lot of the real opportunity sits.
This is particularly true in months when multiple crops have significant revisions. A report that looks modestly bullish for corn might simultaneously have a bearish revision for soybeans — and the two markets will trade differently in the minutes following the release. You need to be looking at both balance sheets, not just the crop you trade.
The Three WASDE Reports That Move Markets the Most
The May WASDE
The May WASDE is the starting gun for the new marketing year. It contains the first comprehensive supply and demand estimates for the upcoming crop — the numbers that will be revised, debated, and traded against for the next 12 months. Before May, the market is essentially guessing. After May, it has an official baseline. The initial new-crop ending stocks estimate in the May WASDE can set the tone for corn and soybean prices through the summer growing season.
The August WASDE
The August WASDE delivers the first field survey-based yield estimates for corn and soybeans, replacing the model-based forecasts that the USDA had been using since May. Field surveys mean actual agronomists physically measuring crop conditions in representative fields across the Corn Belt. The switch from model to survey is often a significant revision — and that revision is the August WASDE’s market-moving moment. This is frequently the report with the most dramatic single-day price impact of the entire year.
The September WASDE
The September WASDE updates August’s yield estimates as early harvest data starts flowing in. It often coincides with the September Grain Stocks report on the same day. When the two reports are released together and they diverge — one bullish, one bearish — the initial market reaction can be chaotic before a direction is established.
How to Approach the Release as a Trader
The WASDE release at 12:00 PM ET creates a specific trading environment that is different from almost any other data release in financial markets. Liquidity in grain futures drops significantly in the 15-30 minutes before the release as traders flatten positions or widen spreads. At exactly noon, the data hits and the market reprices instantly.
There are broadly two approaches. The first is to position before the release based on your read of the pre-report estimates and your assessment of which direction a surprise is more likely — this is how professional traders with strong fundamental views operate. The risk is obvious: if the number goes against you, you are on the wrong side of a fast-moving market with widened spreads.
The second approach — and the more sensible one for most traders — is to wait. Let the initial move happen. Watch where the market settles after the first 5 to 10 minutes. In that window, the computers and the fastest participants have already reacted. But the market is still absorbing the revisions, digesting the world tables, and figuring out whether the initial move was the right one. The second move — once the dust has settled and a direction is established — is often more tradeable than the first.
A third group simply scalps the volatility at the release itself. This requires deep market knowledge, fast execution, and a tolerance for significant risk. It is not a strategy for beginners around a major WASDE release.
What you should not do is hold an outright position through a major WASDE release without understanding the risk. The August WASDE has moved corn futures by 30-40 cents in the first few minutes. For a standard 5,000-bushel corn futures contract, that is $1,500-$2,000 of movement in minutes. Know your risk before the clock hits noon.
Reading the June 2026 WASDE: A Real Corn Example
Theory is useful. Numbers are better. Here is exactly how to read the June 11, 2026 WASDE corn balance sheet — the most widely traded agricultural futures contract in the world. The June WASDE contains two separate corn tables that traders must read together: the 2025/26 marketing year (the current crop, ending August 31) and the 2026/27 marketing year (the new crop, just beginning). They tell very different stories.
The June 2026 corn balance sheet — at a glance
| Data Point | 2025/26 (current crop) | 2026/27 (new crop) | Signal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Production | Record 17.0 billion bu. | 16.0 billion bu. (-6%) | Bearish shift |
| Planted acreage | 98.8 million acres | 95.3 million acres (-3.5M) | Bearish shift |
| Yield (bu/acre) | 181.6 bu/acre (record) | 183.0 bu/acre (trend) | Neutral |
| US Exports | 3.325 billion bu. (record +25M revision) | 3.15 billion bu. (-150M) | Bullish now / bearish forward |
| US Ending Stocks | Raised 3M bu. (minor) | 1.8 billion bu. (-290M from 2025/26) | Bullish forward |
| US Stocks-to-Use | ~11.5% | ~11.4% (below 5-yr avg) | Tightening |
| Global Ending Stocks | 296.9M tons | 277.5M tons (-19.4M) — 12-year low | Strongly bullish |
| Season-avg farm price | ~$4.80/bu | $6.50/bu (+$1.70) | Bullish forward |
What each number means
Production (16.0 billion bushels). This is the headline. The 2026/27 corn crop is projected 6% below last year’s record, driven by lower acreage — farmers planted 3.5 million fewer acres, partly because higher input costs from the Iran war energy shock made corn less profitable relative to soybeans. A smaller crop means less supply entering the marketing year. All else equal, bullish for corn prices.
Yield (183.0 bu/acre). This is a model-based trend estimate for June — the August WASDE will replace it with actual field survey data. Right now 67% of the crop is rated good or excellent by USDA crop scouts, slightly below last year’s 71%. If that number deteriorates through July pollination — the most weather-sensitive stage — the August yield cut could be significant. Watch the weekly Crop Progress report every Monday through the summer as a leading indicator of where the August number goes.
US Exports (record 3.325 billion bushels for 2025/26). Exports were raised 25 million bushels in the June revision — the second consecutive upward revision. Corn exports to South Korea alone are up 96 million bushels year-over-year. This is a current-year bullish signal: demand for US corn is stronger than expected, drawing down old-crop stocks faster. The revision is small but directionally important.
US Ending Stocks (raised 3M bu for 2025/26, then 1.8 billion for 2026/27). Ending stocks is the number. The 3-million-bushel upward revision for the current year is negligible — markets typically need a 50-100 million bushel deviation from consensus to generate a strong reaction. But the 2026/27 ending stocks forecast of 1.8 billion bushels — down 290 million from the prior year — is a different matter. That is a meaningful tightening of the forward balance sheet entering a smaller-crop year.
Global Ending Stocks (277.5 million tons — lowest since 2013/14). This is the most important single number in the June 2026 WASDE for long-term corn bulls. Global corn inventories are heading to a 12-year low. The US is not alone in producing less corn this year — Argentina, Brazil, Russia, and Ukraine all face modest reductions. When the world is drawing down stocks simultaneously, the pricing environment for the next 12 months is structurally supportive.
The June 2026 WASDE is a classic mixed-signal report. The current-year ending stocks revision is tiny — +3 million bushels. In isolation, that is a non-event. A trader looking only at that number might dismiss the report entirely.
But read both sheets simultaneously and the picture changes. New-crop ending stocks are falling 290 million bushels on lower production. Global stocks are heading to a 12-year low. The USDA is already pricing in a $1.70/bushel increase in the season-average farm price. That is a market that is not tight today but is setting up to be tight by the end of 2026/27.
The trading implication: December 2026 corn futures should outperform July 2026 corn futures. The spread between old-crop and new-crop contracts — what traders call the calendar spread — is a cleaner expression of this view than an outright long position. Wait for the initial post-report volatility to settle. Let the revision picture be absorbed. Then look at how the December contract is trading relative to July. That is where the real signal lives in a report like this one.
The crop condition wildcard
One more layer. As of the week ending June 7, the US corn crop was 97% planted — slightly ahead of the 5-year average. That removes one early-season risk. But 67% good/excellent condition is below last year’s pace. Through July, corn enters the pollination stage — the most weather-sensitive period of the growing cycle. If good/excellent ratings fall below 60% during July pollination, the August WASDE yield cut will be significant. That is the scenario that converts the new-crop bullish setup in the June balance sheet into a strong directional move in December corn futures.
Mark August 12 on your calendar. That is when the model-based 183 bu/acre estimate gets replaced with real field survey data. It will be the most important corn number of 2026.
Where AllinAllSpace Covers Agricultural Markets
For broader context on where commodity markets are heading, our State of Energy and Commodities Q3 2026 report covers oil, gold, copper, and grains in depth — including the supply dynamics that make the WASDE such a critical data point each month. For grain and oilseed futures trading, broker selection matters — you need a platform with direct access to CBOT contracts. Our Interactive Brokers review and Saxo Bank review both cover agricultural futures access in detail. You can also see all our broker reviews to compare platforms.
This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Trading agricultural futures involves significant risk of loss. Data sourced from USDA WASDE reports, CME Group, NASS, Farm Progress, Agweek, and Britannica Money. Accurate as of June 2026.