Grain Marketing Education, News & Strategies

Tidbits Flash Sales: The USDA announced yesterday the old crop soybeans sales of 165,150 mts of to unknown (probably Mexico due to uneven volume) and 132,000 mts to unknown, as was reported by the CME Group, but we couldn’t confirm it on the USDA website. Export demand is becoming a growing concern for corn. Current export sales total 925 million bu., down 34% from last year’s strong pace, while USDA projects a much smaller 4% year-over-year decline. At this point in the mark

Tidbits Today is the last business day of the week and the month. It would be reasonable to expect fund managers would want to lock-in some profits. Given how sharp the declines were this month, profits would be locked-in by the fund managers by short covering (buying futures contracts to offset their sold positions at much higher prices). Give some thought to how much corn might be moving to town over the weekend to assess how much pre-hedging there might be this afternoon.

Grain market summary of price outlook, seasonal situation, fundamental & technical analysis with our recommendations for corn, soybeans and wheat (Soft Red Winter, Hard Red Winter & Spring), also for inputs like fuel and fertilizer for past week Wednesday to Tuesday. Read about our approach to this report. We provide three different marketing plans (in order of decreasing our preference). The marketing decision is yours to make, obviously you can mix those plans, change the s

Tidbits November futures contracts, HTA contracts, and basis contracts must be rolled or liquidated by the close of business on Thursday. As of yesterday’s settlement prices, if an HTA is rolled from November to January, it will gain about 14ٕ¢; if rolled to March, the HTA value will increase about 22¢. Note, however, a November basis contract rolled to January or March, the basis will weaken by the same amounts. Egypt bought five wheat cargoes late last week from Poland thro

Tidbits Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of soybeans and a major exporter of corn, beef, cotton, sugar, coffee, and other products that compete head-to-head with U.S. output. When the real weakens, Brazilian farmers receive more reals for the same dollar-denominated global price. This cushions them against lower commodity prices and encourages them to sell more aggressively. Sunday morning, it took 4.9652 reals to buy a U.S. dollar. Monday evening, it took 5.3771 reals

Tidbits A temporary ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine has been secured for the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Oleshky for humanitarian reasons, as First lady Melania Trump's office said on Friday. This cease fire is for one small city and does not apply to any other combative location. Both Russia and Ukraine confirmed the First Lady’s coordinating role in the Oleshky ceasefire and ensuring humanitarian mission. Reports are that all the able-bodied people have left Ole

It's our weekly U.S. grain market analysis and outlook for corn, soybeans and wheat, including traders positioning, basis bids tracking, crush margins, weekly news wrap-up and comments. The Dow Jones Index settled on Friday at 52,215, +213 points for the week. Crude oil settled at $103.44, +1.60. Dollar Index settled at 101.75, -0.03. Baltic Dry Index (a shipping freight-cost index) settled at 2,660, +149. Corn December futures settled at $4.56, -18¼¢ for the week. Basis (Z =

Tidbits USDA issued a statement about corn yields late Friday afternoon after most news people had left the office. The National Agricultural Statistic Service (NASS) said it had made several mistakes on its September 2026 corn production report for the states of Kansas and Nebraska which impacted ten state averages. However, rest assured, all those mistakes were corrected on the October corn production report. Why did they take two weeks to make the mistake public? You can r

Tidbits Today is Friday with good harvest weather. Farm storage bins are getting full and more corn and beans will be moving to grain merchandisers. That means there may be a lot of pre-hedging this afternoon and the spec traders will be anticipating the pre-hedging before it happens. Plan ahead. December corn was down 2¾¢ and Dec wheat was 3½¢ lower yesterday, but they did not trade as low as they did on Wednesday. Export Sales: USDA announced yesterday the sale of 202,000 m

Tidbits Ukraine: U.S. Envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russia’s President Putin early yesterday morning as planned. Witkoff had met with Ukraine’s President Zelensky and several European leaders in Oslo on Tuesday. Putin asked Witkoff what was discussed in Oslo. After Witkoff answered the question and presented Zelensky’s peace plan, Putin said, “We do not need a ceasefire agreement.” Putin proceeded to say Russia wanted to restore economic ties with the U.S., that he was willing

Grain market summary of price outlook, seasonal situation, fundamental & technical analysis with our recommendations for corn, soybeans and wheat (Soft Red Winter, Hard Red Winter & Spring), also for inputs like fuel and fertilizer for past week Wednesday to Tuesday. Read about our approach to this report. We provide three different marketing plans (in order of decreasing our preference). The marketing decision is yours to make, obviously you can mix those plans, change the s

Tidbits U.S. envoy Witkoff had “constructive talks” with Ukraine’s President Zelensky in Oslo, Norway yesterday. Witkoff said he will meet today with President Putin. That news sent December wheat from 6¢ higher to 12¢ lower yesterday. Corn followed. Reuters News and multiple other news services reported: An official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the talks covered "key elements of a comprehensive peace framework," including security guarantees for Ukraine, a

Tidbits Flash Sales: USDA announced yesterday the soybeans sales of 114,000 mts to China and 261,000 mts to unknown. Weekly U.S. export inspections for soybeans at 2 million mts were well above all trade estimates after a brief slowdown, while corn inspections fell well short. The divergence reflects China's return to seasonally timed U.S. soybean purchases and corn's lagging year-over-year sales pace. China, the world's largest ​soybean buyer, brought in 11.88 million mts of

Tidbits Rumors and broader fears focused on escalations in ongoing wars (especially Ukraine-Russia and Saudi-Houthi/Yemen), settler violence in the West Bank, and significant civil unrest in France, and on potential further expansion of violence in the Mid-East (tied to Iran related dynamics). Ukraine conducted one of its largest drone attacks of the conflict overnight into Sunday, launching more than 1,000 drones. Strikes hit the St. Petersburg/Leningrad region, setting the

It's our weekly U.S. grain market analysis and outlook for corn, soybeans and wheat, including traders positioning, basis bids tracking, crush margins, weekly news wrap-up and comments. The Dow Jones Index settled on Friday at 52,002, +347 points for the week. Crude oil settled at $101.84, +10.18. Dollar Index settled at 101.78, -0.45. Baltic Dry Index (a shipping freight-cost index) settled at 2,511, -406. Corn December futures settled at $4.74¼, -5½¢ for the week. Basis (Z

Tidbits The national average corn basis improved after the S&D a week ago yesterday. The December-March corn spread narrowed the day of the bearish Crop Production Report on Friday, 9 October and every business day since then even though December corn lost 5½¢ this past week. The carry (return to storage) is supposed to increase when futures move lower. The Dec to Mar carry was 15¢ on the close 8 October and it is 12¼¢ now which any seasoned grain storage person will read tha

Tidbits Flash Sales: the USDA announced yesterday morning the sales of: 127,000 mts of old crop corn to Japan 558,000 mts of old crop soybeans to China 236,000 mts of old crop soybeans to unknown Wheat: Yesterday weakness in wheat may have been extreme because the CEO of Germany’s largest private cash grain trading firm advised farmers yesterday morning to sell 80-90% of old crop wheat and 50% of new crop. His core arguments:

Tidbits Flash Sales: USDA announced yesterday the sales of old crop soybeans: 330,000 mts to China and 283,450 mts to unknown. NOPA crush for September was 196.3 million bushels of soybeans, below the trade estimate of 203.7 million and less than a year ago. This is the first year to year decline for any month since March 2025. No question, the lack of soybeans in many areas restricted crush bushels. Do you remember Cargill’s Iowa Falls crush plant had a positive basis of 105

Tidbits Do not forget that pre-hedging of corn and soybeans on Friday afternoon will be anticipated by the spec funds earlier in the day. The low on December corn this week was made on Monday, 4¾¢ above last Friday’s report day $4.70¼ low. Soybean Sales: The USDA announced yesterday the sales of 470,000 mts of old crop soybeans to China. This is the first such deal since the September summit between ‌Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Washington. Before the latest deal

Grain market summary of price outlook, seasonal situation, fundamental & technical analysis with our recommendations for corn, soybeans and wheat (Soft Red Winter, Hard Red Winter & Spring), also for inputs like fuel and fertilizer for past week Wednesday to Tuesday. Read about our approach to this report. We provide three different marketing plans (in order of decreasing our preference). The marketing decision is yours to make, obviously you can mix those plans, change the s