Grain Marketing Education, News & Strategies

Tidbits Four years ago today the war between Russia and Ukraine began. After being invaded by Hitler’s Germany in June 1941, the Soviet Union defeated Germany in 3 years and 11 months. After Japan destroyed most of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, the U.S. defeated Imperial Japan in 3 years and 8 months. Wars just are not fought to win any more. That is why the Vietnam War lasted 13 years and Afghanistan was a 20 year war. Flash sale: Yesterday morning, the USDA announ

Tidbits Mexican drug cartels declared war on the Mexican and U.S. governments after their drug lord, El Mencho, was killed in a joint Mexican-U.S. operation. It was 15 days ago that Mexico agreed to joint operation in Mexico with U.S. authorities and they succeeded in taking out a kingpin. The drug cartel has declared war on the Mexican people in an attempt to motivate citizens to plead for the government to call off its persecution of the drug cartels. Many Mexican cities

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 49,626, +125 points for the week. Crude oil settled at $66.31, +3.50. Dollar Index settled at 97.79, +0.91. Baltic Dry Index (a shipping freight-cost index) settled at 2,043, -40. Corn March futures settled at $4.27½, -4¼¢ for the week. B

Tidbits The Supreme Court’s decision that made a large portion of President Trump’s tariffs illegal will not have a direct impact on corn, wheat, and soybean prices. After all, Trump's tariffs are on imports into the U.S., not our exports. Confusion and misinformation is often bearish, but Trump’s new 10% tariffs introduced on Friday afternoon will help stabilize all the markets. Those 10% tariffs will come into effect Tuesday and will be in place for 150 days, the White Ho

Tidbits Tariffs: The Supreme Court ruled yesterday by a vote of 6-3 that President Trump’s IEEPA tariffs are illegal. The Court ruled the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 1977 law meant for national emergencies, does not authorize a president to impose tariffs. Tariffs are considered taxes/duties, which fall under Congress’ constitutional authority. Any broad delegation of authority to the President requires clear statutory language that IEEPA does not i

Tidbits Today is the last trading day for March options. First notice day for March grain futures is next Friday, February 27. Be sure to exit or roll any long positions by the close on February 26 to avoid being involved in the delivery process. Iran rejected the U.S. nuclear deal proposal, which was presented during negotiations in Geneva this week, as the Wall Street Journal reports. Iran counter-offered "modest concessions on its nuclear program.” U.S. officials say that

Tidbits The USDA 2026 Agriculture Outlook Conference is scheduled for February 19–20. The USDA Chief Economist will present the department’s initial 2026 outlook for the agricultural economy, commodity markets, trade, and farm income. Reuters News conducted a survey of analysts for this morning’s USDA Outlook Forum S&D projections: Biofuel: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to submit proposed biofuel blending quotas for 2026 to the White House this week for

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, change

Tidbits Soy Crush: The National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA) reported its members crushed 221.654 million bushels of soybeans in January 2026, up 10.6% from a year ago. The market expected a January crush of 218.52 million bushels. The crush was down 1.5% from December because of the cold weather. Soy oil stocks at the end of January were 1.9 billion pounds versus 1.71 billion expected. The USDA will report their version of the January crush on the first business day

Tidbits Basis & FOB: Yesterday, we reported to you corn prices at New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA) and corn at the Pacific Northwest (PNW) ports were the same FOB price, namely $220 per mt. We cannot remember a time when FOB in the PNW was equal to FOB at NOLA. The prices are the same this year because the cost of rail freight to the PNW from the Midwest is covered by the extremely weak basis in the Upper Midwest compared to the Eastern Corn Belt and river outlets coupled with t

Tidbits Canada's wheat exports for this marketing year to date reached a record 11.25 million mts, up 1.19 million mts from last year’s record pace. Soybeans: Friday’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Commitment of Traders (COT) Report, which is issued every Friday, and we report the numbers on Sundays as part of our Weekly Basis, showed the big spec funds were net buyers of 94,316 of soybean contracts for the week ending last Tuesday. Peak Trading Research r

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 49,501, -615 points for the week. Crude oil settled at $62.81, -0.69. Dollar Index settled at 96.88, -0.80. Baltic Dry Index (a shipping freight-cost index) settled at 2,083, +160. Corn March futures settled at $4.31¾, +1½¢ for the week.

Tidbits The Ag futures market will not trade again until Monday evening due to President's Day. The annual inflation rate in the U.S. slowed to 2.4% in January 2026, its lowest level since May, down from 2.7% in each of the previous two months and below forecasts of 2.5%. Soybeans Pricing Jake Hanley is the Chief Growth Officer and Director of Investments at Teucrium which provides Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) in agricultural futures-based strategies as an investment opportuni

Tidbits Wheat: Exporters announced yesterday that South Korean mills purchased 50,000 mts of U.S. wheat and 40,000 mts of Canadian wheat. The Koreans must have bought soft red winter wheat for immediate shipment because March soft red winter wheat was down 3¾¢ yesterday and all the other soft red winter contracts were 9 to 10¢ lower. Even more amazing is the SRW March wheat futures gained 10¼¢ on the May, and settled inverted, meaning the nearby contract (March) is at a hi

Tidbits It is amazing how suddenly “everyone” trusts Communist China to do what they say they will do when it comes to business transactions. The South China Post reported early Thursday that China’s President Xi and President Trump will extend the trade war truce by as much as a year when they meet Beijing in early April. March soybeans made a new high for the move yesterday, left a quarter cent gap on the chart, and settled higher than any day since the first day of Decembe

Tidbits Flash sale: Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of 230,560 mts of old crop corn to unknown. South America: Dr. Michael Cordonnier left his Brazil soybean estimate unchanged at 179 million mts (USDA 180). He said there are now two concerns in Brazil - poor quality seed in parts of northern Mato Grosso and continued hot and dry conditions in southern Brazil, especially Rio Grande do Sul and southern Mato Grosso do Sul. Both of these situations as something th

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, change

Tidbits Yesterday’s February S&D increased 2025/26 U.S. corn exports, which reduced the marketing year carryover by ~5% or 3 days’ use. World corn carryover was lowered by 1 days’ use as well, it is the smallest in 9 years. World soybean and domestic wheat carryover rose about 1%. The USDA is the world's gold standard for crop estimates, but it faces mounting doubts about the reliability of its data from farmers, grain traders and economists following deep staff losses and a

The numbers were friendly for corn, neutral for wheat and beans. CBOT 20 Minutes After Report Mar corn +1 Mar beans +9 (same as before report) July CBOT wheat -3 July KC wheat -1 Sept Spring wheat -1

Tidbits The USDA will issue its February S&D today at 11 AM central time. We do not expect any surprises, but nothing in this business is 100%. Flash sale: Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of 264,000 mts of old crop soybeans to China. Farmers in Brazil have harvested 16.55% of the area planted with soy for the 2025/26 season, above the 9.84% harvested this time last year, consultancy firm Patria AgroNegocios said on Friday. Brazil 2025/26 soy harvest sales at 33