BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Highlights From The Moscow Times: European lawmakers on Thursday approved new  tariffs on Russian fertilizer  imports, a move aimed at cutting financial support for Moscow’s war effort, but one that has sparked concerns among EU farmers over rising costs.   More than a quarter of the EU’s nitrogen-based fertilizer imports currently come from Russia, with additional volumes entering from Belarus, a close ally of Moscow. The EU Commission wants to end that dependence.   The tar

Highlights On Thursday, July corn  settled above its 200 day moving average for the first time since 2 May.   Reuters News Agriculture analyst Karen Braun reports this week included: "December corn futures surged above all moving averages on Wednesday, reaching a 1-month high of $4.56 per bushel. The contract is up 4.6% so far this week. But will we eventually hit $4.70? Since at least 1973, Dec corn has never failed to return to its average February price.   At 4.18 million

Tidbits Grain markets will be closed on Monday due to Memorial Day , it will reopen at 7 PM CT on Monday, May 26. The National Grain and Feed Association opposes expanding agricultural futures trading hours , warning it could cause unnecessary volatility and increase manipulation risk, especially if futures markets are open while cash markets are closed. In a letter to the CFTC, they stressed that a pause in futures trading is crucial for physical commodity deliveries. The Na

Tidbits Pro Farmer reports: Some yield concerns  are cropping up in Brazil , with some later-planted safrinha corn facing an increased stress in drier biased areas, most notably in center-west areas.   For anyone watching our daily rain day charts that is no surprise. The first three locations are Brazil’s safrinha corn area and the dry season clearly started the first week in May. The dry season usually means no rain. Imagine what a corn field looks like if planted in sandy

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), fuel , fertilizers for past week Wednesday to Tuesday. Read about our approach to this report here . We discussed 2025 corn and soybeans marketing plan  on March 23.Refer to our daily mailing on that day or this post  on the website. We provide three different marketing plans (in order

Tidbits Barchart.com is one of the most popular charting services for every market (stocks, bonds, options, commodities, indexes, etc.). Barchart provides a lot of free information as well as many other services for a fee. Every business day, Barchart reports the conclusion of thirteen purely technical analysis systems to recommend if an investor should buy, sell, or hold a given investment item. The results are computer generated. Therefore, we conclude there is no human op

Tidbits Late morning yesterday, President Trump issued this press release: Yesterday morning the USDA announced the sale of 145,000 mts of soybean meal to the Philippines.   Goldman Sachs has increased its global oil demand  forecast but maintained its oil price forecast at $60 per barrel of Brent crude and $56 per barrel of West Texas Intermediate, despite current trading values exceeding those projections.

Tidbits Trump and Putin  have a phone call scheduled for today. Moscow is 8 hours ahead of Central Time.   On 10 November 2023, Moody’s changed its outlook on the U.S. credit rating  from “stable” to “negative,” signaling a potential future downgrade. Last week, Moody's downgraded the US credit rating for the first time in history, citing the increase of U.S. government debt; rating downgraded from AAA to AA1 with negative outlook.   Palm oil  is the world’s leading vegetable

It's our weekly US grain market prices analysis and outlook for corn, soybeans and wheat. Dow Jones  Industrial Average Index settled at 42,655, +1,405 points for the week. Crude oil  settled at $62.49, +1.43. Dollar Index  settled at 100.98, +0.56. Baltic Dry Index  (a shipping freight-cost index)  settled at 1,388, +89 for the week. Corn July futures  at $4.43½, -6¼¢ for the week. December futures at $4.35½, -6½¢ for the week. Basis   (N = July; e.g. 10N means 10¢ over July

Tidbits Weather  for the next six days predict Missouri, southern areas of Iowa, Illinois and Indiana will get the most rain, as much as 3 to 4 inches (76 to 102 mm). Wind gusts over the major hard wheat production regions are expected to blow over 50 mph in the next ten days.    StoneX’s fertilizer  guy, Josh Linville: "Phosphate values are incredibly high priced with few signs it will soften. NOLA DAP is @ $680."   The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) manufacturing PMI

Highlights The 2025 Hard Red Winter Wheat Tour  hosted by the Wheat Quality Council wrapped up yesterday with scouts predicting Kansas will harvest 338.5 million bushels of wheat this year. Of the last five years, only in 2021 did Kansas produce more wheat than it will this year; 364 million bushels in 2021. Last year, Kansas produced 307 million bushels. The other three years (2020, 2022, 2023) were all less than 300 million bushels with the worst being 201.3 million bushels

Tidbits Soybeans traded sharply lower yesterday because bean oil traded down the 3¢ per pound daily limit yesterday morning. That was because EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said late Wednesday that setting the biofuel mandates for 2026 can be expected in the coming months, which was much later than the market expected. The real bean oil hammer were rumors reported by news wire services that the required Renewable Volume Obligation (RVO) levels in 2026 will be 4.65 billion gallo

Tidbits From 19 February to 28 April, July corn lost 10¢ versus December corn. From 28 April to 13 May, the spread of July corn to December lost another 31½ cents! Yesterday, July corn gained 3½¢ on December corn, which is a huge change in direction.   From harvest until deep into the spring, when old crop prices lose on new crop prices, that is a bearish indicator, even in an up market. The opposite is also true. We should have shown more respect for what that spread was tel

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), fuel , fertilizers for past week Wednesday to Tuesday. Read about our approach to this report here . We discussed 2025 corn and soybeans marketing plan  on March 23.Refer to our daily mailing on that day or this post  on the website. We provide three different marketing plans (in order

Tidbits The U.S. crude oil  inventory increased by 4.29 million barrels in the reporting week ending 9 May, a sharp reversal from the prior week's 4.49 million-barrel draw, according to the American Petroleum Institute. The markets expected a 2.4 million-barrel decline. None-the-less, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures were up $1.72 a barrel yesterday. The Bureau of Labor Statistics yesterday morning reported the annual inflation  rate at the retail level decline

Highlights The U.S. and China trade agreement details announced yesterday morning: A 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs. Both Countries dropped their tariff rates by 115 percent points. The U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods reduced from 145% to 30%. China’s tariffs on U.S. goods will be 10%, with 24% suspended for 90 days and 91% removed. China removed all non-tariff countermeasures (all “lame” excuses like quotas, phyto-sanitary restrictions, etc.) China sent their deputy minist

The numbers were: Friendly to Bullish Corn Friendly Soybeans Negative U.S. Wheat    40 Minutes After the Report: July Corn +4 Dec corn +3...

Highlights The White House  issued this press release shortly after 1:15 PM EDT Sunday: Reuters News Service, May 11, 2025:17 PM EDT: The U.S. and China ended high-stakes trade talks on a positive note on Sunday, with U.S. officials touting a "deal" to reduce the U.S. trade deficit, while Chinese officials said the sides had reached "important consensus" and agreed to launch another new economic dialogue forum.   Neither side released details after they wrapped up two days of

It's our weekly US grain market prices analysis and outlook for corn, soybeans and wheat. Dow Jones  Industrial Average Index settled at 41,249, -68 points for the week. Crude oil  settled at $61.06, +2.68. Dollar Index  settled at 100.42, +0.38. Baltic Dry Index  (a shipping freight-cost index)  settled at 1,299, -122 for the week. Corn July futures  at $4.49¾, -19¼¢ for the week. December futures at $4.42, -8¼¢ for the week. Basis   (N = July; e.g. 10N means 10¢ over July f

Tidbits The day before yesterday’s trade talk between China  and the U.S. were to begin, President Trump said reducing the tariff  to 80% on Chinese goods "seems right," suggesting an alternative to the current 145% tariff. The meeting took place in Geneva as scheduled yesterday, but neither side made any comment about the discussion other than they will meet again today. Saturday's talks began in the morning and continued into the evening. It is generally considered a positi