BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

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 here . 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, cha

Tidbits Peace Talks: U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll held previously unannounced talks late Monday and all day Tuesday with Russian officials in Abu Dhabi as part of an intense new push by President Trump to end the war in Ukraine. Initial reports Tuesday morning were things were going just peachy, but when presented to Ukraine’s officials, who arrived in Abu Dhabi late Tuesday, it was immediately rejected. A group of European countries supporting Ukraine, which is known as

Tidbits All December  basis contracts and long December futures positions need to be liquidated or rolled  before the close tomorrow to avoid the chance of being assigned delivery from the CBOT.   Flash sale: Yesterday morning the USDA announced the sale of 123,000 mts of old crop soybeans to China, which now has purchased 16.2% of the agreed 12 million mts by the end of January.   USDA’s final Crop Progress  report for the week ending November 23 shows corn harvesting nearly

Tidbits Ukraine:  On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio led the talks in Geneva with a high-level Ukrainian delegation after Ukraine and its European allies rejected the U.S. peace plan because of the major concessions to Russia.   Rubio said significant progress was made on crafting a plan to end the war in Ukraine during the talks, but no agreement was reached on how to guarantee Kyiv's security amid concerns about the threat posed by Russia.   European officials j

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. Dow Jones  Industrial Average Index settled on Friday at 46,245, -902 points for the week. Crude oil  settled at $57.98, -1.97. Dollar Index  settled at 100.2, +0.93. Baltic Dry Index  (a shipping freight-cost index)  settled at 2,275, +150. Corn December futures settled at $4.25½, -4¾¢ for th

Tidbits Early last week President Trump authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela. On Friday, a large crude refinery and chemical facility in Venezuela had a serious explosion, the cause of which is reportedly unknown. On Monday, the U.S. will designate Venezuela’s drug Cartel de Soles as a foreign terrorist organization for its alleged role in importing illegal drugs into the U.S. That designation legally allows a U.S. military strike on any target within the country tha

Tidbits Russia-Ukraine:  Sharply lower crude oil yesterday was primarily due to the prospect of the war between Russia and Ukraine ending next week.   President Trump is telling Ukraine’s President Zelensky to sign a new peace proposal by Thanksgiving or risk losing U.S. support. U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll delivered the message to Zelensky on Thursday in the form of a 28-point plan drafted by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev. The

Tidbits December CBOT options expire today. Flash sale: Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale to China of 462,000 mts of old crop soybeans and 132,000 mts of old crop white wheat. Despite the announcement of a large sale of beans and wheat to China, corn, wheat, and beans followed the trend from higher to lower. Relax! Stocks and commodities will recover very soon. U.S. stocks  surged about 2% yesterday morning as Nvidia’s quarterly report was much better than expect

Tidbits Flash sale: Yesterday morning the USDA announced the sale of 330,000 mts of old crop beans to China. The U.S. administration will soon announce details of payments to farmers hurt by low crop prices and trade disputes, Secretary Rollins said yesterday. She also said that the USDA will be making an announcement about "structural changes" to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, the week after Thanksgiving. She has said all SNAP recip

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 here . 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, cha

Tidbits Soy Meal: A 30,000 mts cargo of Argentine soybean meal has cleared Chinese customs, marking the first shipment since Beijing allowed imports in 2019 and signaling a new trade channel with the world’s top soymeal exporter.   USDA’s Crop Progress  for the week ending November 16 had corn harvested at 91% (vs 94% five-year avg; 98% last year) and soybeans harvested at 95% (vs 96% five-year avg; 98% last year). Winter wheat is 92% planted (95% five-year avg; 94% last year

Tidbits December CBOT options expire Friday. Soybean futures were supported Sunday night and yesterday morning by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s weekend comment that he expects a trade deal with China to be signed perhaps by Thanksgiving and expressed confidence China would buy U.S. soybeans, just a little later than we were told in late October. Then just before noon, the NOPA reported its soybean crush for October. It was 227.647 million bushels, 18 million more bushels

Tidbits During the 43 days the U.S. government was shut down, December spring wheat gained 6¢, Hard Red Winter December wheat gained 42¢, Soft Red Winter December wheat gained 47¢, December corn gained 28¢ and January beans gained $1.30, new highs not only for the year, but higher than any time since June 2024.   There has been a lot of talk over the years that farm commodities are the only products in the U.S. that everyone is told what production was in the past and expecte

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. Dow Jones  Industrial Average Index settled on Friday at 47,147, +160 points for the week. Crude oil  settled at $59.95, +0.11. Dollar Index  settled at 99.27, -0.29. Baltic Dry Index  (a shipping freight-cost index)  settled at 2,125, +21. Corn December futures settled at $4.30¼, +3¢ for the

Tidbits Soybean Outlook We were concerned before Friday’s USDA numbers were released that the soybean rally would soon end because soybean exports are not meeting expectations.   China had never confirmed the purchase of any U.S. soybeans the Trump administration reported.  On Friday, USDA confirmed the sale of 332,000 mts of soybeans sold during the shutdown to China, which is about 100,000 mts less than what the rumor mill and the Trump administration had reported. It is po

November S&D Last year, the USDA started the 2024 corn crop with a yield of 181 in May and continued that yield in June and July. In August, USDA put the yield at 183.2, then 183.6 in September, then 183.8 in October, 183.1 in November. There is no crop production report in December, so the December S&D always has the same yield as November S&D. This year may be different because of the shut down, but we doubt it.   On 10 January 2025, March corn was $4.52, 52¢ above its cont

The USDA WASDE (S&D) numbers were negative everything.   CBOT 40 Minutes After Report Dec corn -9 Jan beans -15 July CBOT wheat -10 July KC wheat -10 Sept Spring wheat -6    Corn will soon resume the uptrend – world supplies tighten and market does not believe 186 yield.

Tidbits Shutdown: President Trump signed the funding bill to reopen the government. Federal employees should already be back at work. S&D: At 11 AM Central Time today, the USDA will release a World Agricultural Supply & Demand Estimates (WASDE) for the first time since 12 September. USDA will also issue all the daily exports sales in excess of 100,000 mts of grains that should have been reported but were not reported because of the shut-down. The daily sales reports may be mo

Tidbits President Donald Trump is committed to providing Americans a $2,000 check using money that has come into government coffers from Trump's tariffs. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump's staff is exploring how to go about making the plan a reality. The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote today to end the government shutdown. OPEC  revised its crude oil demand projections for 2026 from higher to about unchanged to show a “b

Tidbits November USDA S&D  report will be released this Friday. A Reuters' survey shows traders expect lower U.S. corn and soybean production. The average corn production is estimated at 16.557 billion bushels, down 257 million from September. The average yield is expected to slip from 186.7 to 184 bpa, while still a record. Despite the lower production, U.S. ending stocks are expected to rise slightly to 2.136 billion bushels due to higher carry-in stocks from last year’s cr