Last week’s World Agri­cultural Supply and De­­mand Estimates (WASDE) report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) showed a slight decrease in the expected U.S. corn ending stocks for 2013-14 compared to the USDA’s January estimates.

The USDA estimated the 2013-14 corn ending stocks at 1.48 billion bushels, down from last month’s 1.63 billion bushel estimate. Corn ending stocks were 821 million bushels at the end of the 2012-13 marketing year and 989 million bushels at the end of the 2011-12 marketing year.

The corn stocks-to-use ratio for 2013-14 is now estimated to be near 11.1 percent by the end of the current marketing year, as compared to a stocks-to-use ratio of 7.4 percent for the 2012-13 marketing year.

The decrease in corn...