Grain Marketing Education, News & Strategies

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 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 the sales size or add

Tidbits November grain and oilseed options expire this Friday, October 24th. Deliveries on November soybean futures will start Friday, October 31st. Farm Aid: The U.S. administration is planning to distribute more than $3 billion in aid for farmers and reopen some activities of the USDA amid the ongoing federal shutdown. Ag Secretary Rollins said: "Thursday, USDA will resume Farm Service Agency core operations, including critical services for farm loan processing, ARC/PLC

Tidbits Tariffs: The Trump administration began easing tariff policies, making exceptions for goods that cannot be produced, mined, or grown in the USA. The list of exemptions includes gold, LEDs, chemicals, metals, and even aircraft parts. The tariff relief is related to an upcoming Supreme Court case that may declare some duties illegal. Now the Department of Commerce and the U.S. Trade Representative will be able to independently approve tariff relief, which will speed up

Tidbits Venezuela: Since 2 September, the U.S. military has destroyed 7 small vessels after leaving Venezuela on course to the U.S. because they purportedly were carrying illegal drugs. One of them was a submarine this past week. The past two months, the U.S. has moved a considerable amount of military hardware to locations very near Venezuela, including B-2 Stealth bombers and B-52 bombers flying off Venezuela’s coast nearly every day this past week near the two islands wh

It's our weekly US grain market prices analysis and outlook for corn, soybeans and wheat. Dow Jones Industrial Average Index settled on Friday at 46,191, +711 points for the week. Crude oil settled at $57.64, -0.60. Dollar Index settled at 98.54, -0.31. Baltic Dry Index (a shipping freight-cost index) settled at 2,069, +133. Corn December futures settled at $4.22½, +9½¢ for the week. Basis (Z = December; e.g. 10Z means 10¢ over Dec futures) (Futures price + Basis = Cash price

Free DP for Soybeans From Reuters News: In an unusual offer during the peak of autumn harvesting, ADM is allowing farmers to deliver soy to its facility in Decatur, Illinois, and set the final sale price later, without paying for storage, the two sources said. In exchange, ADM will take ownership of the soybeans, enabling it to process the crops, they added. ADM’s offer, known as free deferred pricing, will be available to farmers until the end of October, and those who p

Tidbits Pre-hedge: Thirty minutes before the CBOT closed yesterday afternoon, December corn was up 2¼¢ and settled up 1¼¢. Not much pre-hedging pressure. Was it because of the weekend rain in the forecast? No late pressure in soybeans futures at all, which would be as expected; essentially bean harvest is over. Rumor is China will soon auction 3.5 million mts of government owned soybean beans. Historically, China offers government stocks at auction when domestic prices ar

Tidbits The U.S. budget deficit for fiscal year 2025 narrowed to $1.775 trillion, a decrease of $41 billion from the previous year, driven by record federal receipts, up 6% from 2024. The improvement was supported by record high tariffs and customs revenues. The fiscal year, ending September 30, 2025, covered nearly nine months under the new administration and marked the first annual deficit decline since 2022. After buying $20 billion worth of Argentine pesos on 9 October, t

Tidbits Corn basis continues to firm. Dan reported Heritage Coop in West Central Ohio firmed from -45Z (45¢ under Dec futures) last Friday, to -40Z on Monday, to -37Z yesterday. More than half the corn is still in the field in that area where yields are not as good as expected in early August, but above average. Agronomists have identified the area west of Galesburg, Illinois, including communities of Alexis, Joy, Monmouth, Kirkwood, etc., as the Tarspot Ground Zero of the Co

Tidbits China: About noon Central Time yesterday it was reported: “U.S. Trade Representative Greer says the Trump Administration thinks they will be able to "work through it" with China.” A meeting between President Trump and President Xi has officially been rescheduled. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday Washington was considering terminating some trade ties with China, including in relation to cooking oil. "I believe that China purposefully not buying our Soybeans,

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 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 the sales size or add

Tidbits With the Chinese and U.S. trade relationship going down the toilet on Friday and nothing concrete since then, it was quite surprising soybean futures were 1½¢ higher yesterday while corn and wheat settled down 1 to 2¢. An Indian trade delegation will visit the United States this week as Washington and New Delhi push to finalize a bilateral deal by the fall deadline. India is seeking to increase U.S. natural gas purchases as part of the talks, which previously includ

Tidbits Mid-day Saturday, President Trump issued this statement: Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine! Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment… The USA wants to help China, not hurt it. Later Trump posted: China’s President Xi “just had a bad moment.” China has softened their stance on their Friday announcement about rare earth mineral export controls. On Sunday morning, China issued this press release specifically about rare earth minerals: The rec

It's our weekly US grain market prices analysis and outlook for corn, soybeans and wheat. Dow Jones Industrial Average Index settled on Friday at 45,480, -1,279 points for the week. Crude oil settled at $58.24, -2.45. Dollar Index settled at 98.854, +1.14. Baltic Dry Index (a shipping freight-cost index) settled at 1,936, +35. Corn December futures settled at $4.13, -6¢ for the week. Basis (Z = December; e.g. 10Z means 10¢ over Dec futures) (Futures price + Basis = Cash price

Tidbits Dismissals: Friday evening President Trump fired more than 4,200 Federal employees from the Treasury Department, U.S. Health Agency, Internal Revenue Service, and the Departments of Education, Commerce, and Homeland Security's cybersecurity division. Roughly 300,000 civil service workers have already been set to leave their jobs this year due to a downsizing campaign initiated earlier this year. From the AgrInvest Commodities Team in Brazil: "The São Paulo market is

Tidbits Politics and economics: Thursday evening, the U.S. Senate passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2026. It authorizes $913.9 billion in defense spending. The NDAA sets policy and funding priorities for the Department of Defense (or War), including modernization of military capabilities, support for service members, and enhancements to national security technologies. It now heads to the conference committee for reconciliation

Tidbits Pre-hedging: When the CBOT closes this afternoon at 1:15 PM Central Time, the combines will continue to harvest corn and beans through the weekend. Some of those bushels are going to be hauled to merchandisers and sold. Therefore, in the last 30 minutes of trading today before the CBOT closes this afternoon, merchandisers are going to sell futures contracts to hedge their estimate of how many bushels they will buy this weekend. This is called pre-hedging. Last Friday,

Tidbits S&D: The USDA is not expected to release the October WASDE report tomorrow, but trade estimates were collected. The average estimate for U.S. corn production is 16.632 billion bushels with the yield of 184.8 bpa. The September WASDE report showed corn production at 16.814 billion bushels with a yield of 186.7 bpa. U.S. soybean production's average estimate is 4.267 billion bushels with a yield at 53.1 bpa, compared to 4.301 billion bushels and 53.5 bpa in September. U

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 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 the sales size or add

Tidbits U.S. farming: The Trump administration was expected to announce yesterday a plan to bail out U.S. farmers, but a White House spokeswoman said: “No decisions regarding new agricultural policies have been made.” Dr. Michael Cordonnier cut his 2025 U.S. corn yield estimate by 1 bushel to 181 bpa, while the soybean yield forecast remained unchanged at 52 bpa. His bias is neutral-to-lower for both crops. U.S. farmers are cautiously optimistic about the long term but facing