World crop yields as the Department of Agriculture publishes them, with the listed thresholds drawn at the year each contract settles. The record is solid up to the last marketing year that has closed and dashed after it, because the department publishes a figure for a year still under way and revises it until that year ends, which is the number the market is pricing. Drag across a chart’s history to fit a straight line and project it forward with the year it would cross each threshold; different windows give different projections. Double-click to clear. Hover the series for the value at a point and its ten-year change, or a marker for the contract’s quote; click a marker to open that contract on IBKR.
ForecastEx lists contracts on global crop yields for corn, for wheat and for rice. Each pays one dollar if the yield the Department of Agriculture publishes for the marketing year comes in above the stated threshold. The department posts a figure for a year still under way and revises it until that year closes, and that running figure is what the market is pricing, which is why the record above is drawn solid to the last closed year and dashed after it.
Yields come from the Production, Supply and Distribution database the Foreign Agricultural Service maintains, which carries one figure per crop per marketing year for the world and for each producing country. A global yield is production over area harvested, so it moves with weather in the growing season and with how much land was planted and brought in. The estimate is revised month by month as harvests are reported, and a contract settles on the figure published for the marketing year it names.
Each contract pays one dollar if the published yield comes in above its threshold and nothing if it does not, so the price in cents is the market’s probability of that outcome. There are no sellers on this exchange. A participant buys Yes or buys No, and the two bids sum to one dollar. Dragging across a chart fits a straight line to the window dragged and projects it forward with the year it would cross each threshold, which describes that window and carries no forecast of the yield.