BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Tidbits At 5 AM Central yesterday morning, China announced an additional 34% tariff  on all U.S. products beginning 10 April and Reuters reported China halted poultry products imports from two unnamed American companies. China added five other countermeasures that do not appear to be ag related. Corn, beans, and wheat dropped dramatically in the 30 minutes after the news was released while us peon market watchers wondered what happened.     Corn fully recovered and settled hi

Tidbits Today is when President Trump said his tariffs on various imported products from multiple countries will be announced. The market has probably overestimated the impact of these tariffs.     Yesterday, the USDA reported total crush for February after the CBOT closed. The corn crush was 465 million bushels, down 6% from a year ago; corn crushed for ethanol was 421 million bushels, down 5%. The soybean crush was 189 million bushels, 2% less than a year ago. The canola cr

Highlights India is, by far, the largest world buyer of nitrogen fertilizer and they prefer urea. This past week India finally issued their first urea tender of 2025. It was expected to be issued from late January to the end of February. The nitrogen market-makers have been nervous and nitrogen retailers have been stressed the past few months waiting to see how much urea India would seek to buy and what price they would be willing to pay for it. That information is needed to

Price of Crude Oil May Be Going Up Last week, the Iranian-backed Houthis said they would resume attacks on Israeli vessels sailing off the coast of Yemen in response to Israel’s latest blockade on Gaza. The Houthis' warning affected the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Arabian Sea.   President Trump ordered a series of airstrikes on the Houthi-held areas in Yemen on Saturday, promising to use “overwhelming lethal force” until Iranian-backed Houthi r

Highlights At 11 AM Central Time, the USDA will release its March S&D. It will be neutral for the market at the worst. Despite all the tariff rhetoric yesterday, the big news was the corn weekly export inspections. CHS summed it up this way:  “ Corn inspections were outstanding with the total setting a marketing year high. Inspections have been above one million tons for nine consecutive weeks. This is also the ninth week in a row where corn inspections have been above both l

Highlights On Saturday, China announced tariffs on over $2.6 billion worth of Canadian agricultural and food products, retaliating against Canadian tariffs introduced in October. The tariffs are scheduled to take effect on 20 March and they match the 100% and 25% import duties Canada slapped on China-made electric vehicles, steel, and aluminum products. Canola was excluded from a China tariff, which was one of Canada's top exports to the world's top agricultural importer pri

Highlights China’s government and financial sectors returned to work yesterday after the Lunar New Year holiday. Equity and commodity trading was remarkably calm given all the tariff talk, but the yuan was weak. That most likely comes from the consensus that China’s economy is wounded by weak financial, perhaps an unstable political situation and cannot battle Trump nearly as strongly as it did during his first term. All of Asia remains fixated on China and its next response

Highlights A 10% tariff  on Chinese imports into the U.S. went into effect yesterday. China said it will retaliate with a 15% tariff on U.S. coal, liquefied natural gas, a 10% tariff on crude oil, agriculture machinery, and pickup trucks. The volume of U.S. agricultural machinery exports to China is about $1 billion per year, the main exporter is the state of Iowa, with which China has established ties. Currently, Chinese tariffs affect 2-3% of total U.S. exports.   Note that

Tidbits Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of 136,000 mts of old crop corn to unknown. Rumors are floating that China needs to buy corn. The U.S. is the only place to buy shiploads of corn until June. Three months ago, China said it harvested its biggest crop of corn last summer despite three typhoons moving across much of their corn growing area in July and August.   Early yesterday China halted soybean imports from five Brazilian companies because cargoes did no

Highlights The CBOT ag markets will not trade until 7 PM Monday evening due to MLK Day. Yesterday morning the European weather model  significantly reduced rainfall amounts for the next 10 days for Argentina. It had predicted 2½ to 3 inches (50-60 mm) before Friday morning's EUR model showed just a half to one inch (10-24 mm) in the Buenos Aires province which includes Salto, the sixth location on our rain day chart. It appears most (maybe all) other forecasters are sticking

Highlights We really do not have a logical explanation why soybeans futures are up 68¢ the past 3 trading days and up $1.06 the past 15 trading days.     South America most likely will harvest the largest crop they have ever harvested. The world carryover is a 116 day supply; it is truly a burden for $10.50 futures. Last year’s world carryover was a 107 day supply and you well remember what a painful experience $9.52 soybean futures were last August. The dollar index was 100.

Tidbits North Dakota utility regulators granted approval on Friday for a span of a proposed carbon dioxide pipeline that would cross five Midwestern states. The state’s Public Service Commission voted unanimously to approve a siting permit for Summit Carbon Solutions’ modified, 333-mile route in North Dakota. The company’s proposed $8 billion, 2,500-mile pipeline system would carry tons of CO2 emissions from 57 ethanol plants in five states for storage deep underground in Nor

Highlights Two men were arrested in New York City and a third is being sought as an Iranian plot to kill  Donald Trump was foiled.     The Biden Administration has lifted sanctions  on Russian banks while still promising to cut Russia off from the Western financial system. The US Treasury Department cleared energy-related transactions with Otkritie Bank, Zenit, Saint Petersburg, Sovcombank, Sberbank, VTB, Alfa Bank, Vnesheconombank, Rosbank, the National Clearing Center (NCC)

Highlights Yesterday morning, the USDA reported the sale of: 132,000 mts of old crop soybeans to China 132,000 mts of old crop soybeans to unknown 273,048 mts of old crop corn to unknown Angie Setzer reported: “ Tuesday’s weakness in beans was due to rumors that China is planning to shut down ports for 2-3 weeks to update their quarantine rules. While this is not unusual, considering something similar happened twice last year, it does create some uncertainty over the pace of

Tidbits Asia markets opened today with an increasingly bullish global backdrop fueled by continued strength in U.S. stocks, but with local sentiment more circumspect due to the uncertainty surrounding China's deep-rooted economic problems, but China continues to address those problems.   The People's Bank of China is expected to cut its loan prime rates today as Beijing's latest move in a series of monetary, fiscal, and liquidity support measures to shore up the imploding pro

Highlights Yesterday’s U.S. commodity market was down on harvest pressure and China sent a record 125 military aircraft to encircle Taiwan “as a resolute punishment for Taiwan’s president's continuous fabrication of ‘Taiwan independence’ nonsense.”     The commodity markets fear that politicians may pull a Jimmy Carter stunt and “punish” China like Carter punished the Soviet Union for its Christmas Eve 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. On 4 January 1980, Carter banned U.S. grain

Tidbits Independent financial news service, Caixin Global, reported China’s Ministry of Finance (MOF) announced yesterday policies for local governments to buy land and housing from property developers and promised intensive support to help localities with their hidden debts.   These highly anticipated fiscal measures are expected to complement a slate of monetary and other initiatives announced by the country’s central bank last month to boost the sluggish economic recovery.

Highlights The main point of interest on yesterday’s S&D was what would the USDA do with corn and bean yields. The market expected both to be reduced slightly. USDA did lower bean yields one-tenth of a bushel, as expected, but increased corn yields two-tenths of a bushel while the market expected a two-tenths of a bushel reduction.   USDA increased corn demand by 73 million bushels, bringing the total increase in corn demand since 1 November to 813 million bushels! Throw in t

Tidbits Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of 116,000 mts of old crop soybeans to China and 198,000 mts of old crop corn to unknown. On its weekly tender, Japan bought 137,000 mts of milling wheat from the US, Canada, and Australia. Saudi Arabia is still looking for 295,000 mts of hard milling (bread) wheat.   Estimates for yesterday morning’s employment report were forecasting an increase of 147,000 non-farm jobs, a 0.3% increase in hourly earnings, and an unchan

Highlights At 11 AM Central Time today, the USDA will issue its Quarterly Grain Stocks Report. It will show the inventory of all commodities as of September first and there could be some production and consumption adjustments made for any of the past three marketing years. In other words, there could be some big surprises. We expect some serious long futures profit-taking and cash selling of corn and beans before the report comes out.    The ten-day weather forecast showed ra