Grain Marketing Education, News & Strategies

Tidbits At 11 AM Central Time today, the USDA will issue its monthly USA and world S&D. Conab is also expected to update their Brazilian production forecasts today. Flash Sales: Yesterday, the USDA announced the sale of 136,000 mts of new crop soybeans to China and 180,000 mts of new crop soybean meal to the Philippines. The Black Sea: The Deputy Director of the Commercial Operations Department for Ukraine was cited as the source of a rumor among international grain trade par

Tidbits Crude oil prices jumped 5% yesterday as hopes of a U.S.-Iran peace deal and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz faded. Flash Sales: Yesterday, the USDA announced the sale of 105,000 mts of old crop corn to unknown. Yes, the 2025 crop, with just 3 weeks left to export it! The USDA is extending the deadline for farmers to apply for Stages 1 and 2 of the Supplemental Disaster Relief Program (SDRP) to 30 September 2026. Additionally, USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) is prov

Tidbits Russia is intensifying strikes on Ukrainian ports, terminals and shipping infrastructure after Ukrainian attacks on Russian vessels and maritime logistics. The responses are becoming broader and the economic impact is deepening. Ukraine’s Ag Minister said Sunday expects agricultural exports to fall to about 29.6million mts this marketing year, down 54% from an earlier forecast of 64.4 million mts. Wheat exports could decline 53% to just 8.3 million mts. Odessa’s por

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 54,037, +1,552 points for the week. Crude oil settled at $77.08, -9.72. Dollar Index settled at 99.6, -0.20. Baltic Dry Index (a shipping freight-cost index) settled at 3,089, +357. Corn September futures settled at $4.39, -1¾¢ for the week. December co

S&D The USDA will issue its August S&D on Wednesday. This is the first 2026 crop production report in which yields will not be accounting estimates based upon unknown assumptions. While the yield numbers will not be based on field survey results, the yield numbers will be based on survey reports from approximately 15,000 farmers across the country of their individual crop conditions, expectations, and projected yields based on what they see in their fields at the beginning of

Tidbits Flash Sales: Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sales of 238,000 mts of new crop soybeans to China 29,808 mts of new crop corn and 256,289 mts of 2027 crop corn to Mexico. One has to wonder why Mexico is committing to buy so much 2027 corn this far in advance. What do they know that we do not know? Their expected demand for corn in the 2027-28 marketing year. Russian drones damaged two vessels on Friday per multiple reports, one of them carrying wheat. Andrey S

Tidbits Flash Sales: Yesterday, the USDA announced the sale of 122,000 mts of new crop soybeans to China. Weather: The drought monitor as of August 4th shows 70.9% of the U.S. is experiencing abnormal dryness or drought, up 3 points from the previous week, with 48.5% in D1 level drought or higher: corn at 28% (down 1), soybeans at 26% (unchanged), and 58% (up 16 points) of spring wheat acres also impacted. The National Weather Service 7-day forecast expects rain to be lighter

Tidbits Showers in the southern half of Iowa and northern Missouri, with additional scattered rains across Nebraska and Kansas, pressured corn and beans yesterday. Technical support at the 50 day moving price average for corn and the 100 day moving average for beans held, which is a significant bullish indication given the amount of rain that has fallen this week and expected into next week. Rain is the whole story this week despite the corn crop rating losing 6 percentage po

Tidbits Flash Sales: Yesterday, the USDA announced the sale of 132,000 mts of new crop soybeans to China. Weather & Markets: Small rain squalls in Nebraska and Iowa popped up early Tuesday morning and turned corn, wheat, and beans futures from higher to lower. Once again, when it is July or August and raining in Iowa, corn and bean prices go down. If you have old or new crop soybeans not priced, do you know the Corn Belt is expected to have above normal temperatures and above

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 Flash Sales: Yesterday, the USDA announced the sale of 488,000 mts of new crop soybeans to China and 136,150 mts of new crop soybeans to unknown. The June USDA crushing report had 520 million bushels of corn crushed, up 5% from a year ago. The soybean crush was 218 million bushels, up 10.65% from a year ago. The canola June crush was 204,577 tons, up 22.9% from a year ago. Biofuel: Friday EIA data showed combined biodiesel and renewable diesel production in May 2026 w

Tidbits The National Weather Service (NWS) forecast Sunday evening predicted above normal rainfall and above normal temperatures for the next two weeks in the Corn Belt. This is August, the month that makes or breaks soybean yields. The USDA predicted an average yield of 53 bushels on its July S&D, the same as a year ago, but 2.25 bushels more than 2024 and 2.4 bushels more than 2023. Matt Makens is an atmospheric scientist. He says the current Super El Niño is unlike any

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 52,485, +538 points for the week. Crude oil settled at $86.8, -3.67. Dollar Index settled at 99.8, -1.66. Baltic Dry Index (a shipping freight-cost index) settled at 2,732, -11. Corn September futures settled at $4.40¾, -23½¢ for the week. December corn

Tidbits Wheat: A Ukrainian drone strike on Thursday inflicted “significant damage” on Russia’s grain export terminal at Taman on the Kerch Strait, a facility Reuters put at 5 million mts of capacity, where shipping through the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait has been halted since 10 July. That corridor handled roughly a quarter of Russian grain exports. Before the strike, Taman Port loaded 374,000 mts of wheat for export the week ending Thursday, down from 513,000 from the

Tidbits Flash Sales: Yesterday, the USDA announced the sale of 252,000 mts of new crop soybeans to unknown. China's Soybean Auctions: China's Sinograin auctioned 504,000 metric tons (18.5 million bushels) of imported soybeans on Friday. They sold roughly half of the offered volume in its largest reserve auction since January. Sold beans moved into commercial channels, and Sinograin has scheduled another auction of 501,158 metric tons for Wednesday, involving soybeans produced

Tidbits Flash Sales: Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of 132,000 mts of new crop soybeans to China. Feedback: Some farmers in Central Minnesota (Morrison County) said they will start chopping corn Monday if they do not get rain this weekend. The U.S. GDP for the second quarter came in at 1.5% growth rate vs. 1.8% expected. Jobless claims were increased to 197,000 vs. 201,000 expected and below the recent average. The June Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) P

Tidbits Markets: November soybean futures lost nearly 30¢ and corn lost 9¢ Wednesday as some weather forecasts indicated rain relief for the Western Corn Belt with widespread rains into the early part of next week, with heaviest amounts seen for Iowa, Southern Minnesota and Northern Illinois. Those areas could see 1.25 inches to over 2 inches by Tuesday, based on a National Weather Service five-day outlook. Frankly, we cannot find a NWS five-day outlook with that prediction.

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 Just before the CBOT trading day ends today, the Federal Reserve will announce its decision on interest rate change. The CME's Fed Watch Tool shows the market has priced-in a 29.4% chance of a rate hike. Flash sale: Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of 197,272 mts of new crop corn to unknown. When a sales tonnage is not an even thousand mts, it means the grain is going to be shipped by train. Modern rail hopper cars have a maximum gross weight of 286,000

Tidbits The Strait of Hormuz status is disputed: Iran claims it is closed, while the United States insists it remains open. Actual traffic through the strait is severely reduced to a fraction of normal capacity as hundreds of vessels wait or are bypassing standard tracking amid expensive war-risk insurance premiums. Crude Oil was sharply lower early Monday after the U.S. paused its bombing campaign against Iran over the weekend. On Sunday, Iran said it will halt its own ​atta