According to Commitment of Traders data, managed money returned to a net long position with an increase of 55,431 contracts, taking the net long position to 2,759 contracts. Most of this shift was due to short covering, as total short positions declined by 64,573 contracts.

USDA released its Export Sales report, showing total corn sales of 2.2 MMT during the week ending December 18. This exceeded traders’ expectations of 1–2 MMT. Sales were the highest in the past five weeks and were 28.7% higher than the same week last year.

EIA data was updated on Wednesday. Ethanol production for the week ending December 26 was reported at 1.12 million barrels per day, up 25,000 barrels per day from the previous week. Ethanol stocks increased by 416,000 barrels to 22.944 million barrels. Ethanol exports declined by 71,000 barrels per day to 148,000 barrels per day, while refinery ethanol inputs fell by 24,000 barrels per day to 888,000 barrels per day.