Rabobank has lowered its forecast for corn prices for Jul-Sep to $3.65 per bushel, after the US Department of Agriculture’s output estimate for the country was lower than market expectation. Although the US corn inventory forecast for the close of 2017-18 is downgraded by 50m (mln) bushels to 2.27bn (bln) bushels, that was well above the 2.00 bn (bln) bushel figure the market had expected. Variation in weather conditions in the US, which makes accurate yield forecasts difficult, is also likely to weigh on maize prices. However, slightly wetter conditions over the western US corn growing belt in August, which may hurt standing crops, prevented Rabobank from cutting its price forecast further.