BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Tidbits Israel plans to make further trade concessions to the U.S. on food and agricultural goods. The Israeli government intends to scrap a tax-free quota and raise levies to 50% on wheat-feed imported from countries other than the U.S. starting in April, as Bloomberg reports. Officials hope that boosting the competitiveness of U.S. wheat against Israel’s traditional suppliers — the largest of them being Russia — will help clinch a deal to ease tariffs on goods shipped to th

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 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

Tidbits China  is considering buying more U.S.-farmed soybeans , President Donald Trump said after what he called "very positive" talks with President Xi Jinping yesterday. In a goodwill gesture two months before Trump's expected visit to Beijing, Trump said Xi would consider hiking soybean purchases from the United States to 20 million metric tons in the current season, up from 12 million mts previously. March soybean futures rallied to $11.15 yesterday, but settled at $10.9

Tidbits Futures: March soybeans, and all three March wheat contracts made new highs for the year yesterday and March corn traded to its highest price since before the USDA S&D on 12 January, despite the dollar index being a little higher yesterday for the second day in the past 8 days. Prices were supported by higher crude oil, cold temperatures (more soybean meal and corn for feed demand, fewer farmer sales, potential winter kill on wheat), expected strong export sales today

Tidbits Flash sale: Yesterday morning the USDA announced the sale of 192,350 mts of old crop soybeans to unknown. Biofuel: Republican U.S. lawmakers plan to create a task force to study potential year-round sales of higher-ethanol E15 gasoline blends in the U.S., after an attempt to pass such legislation in a funding bill this week fell through. Farm groups and Midwest ethanol advocates blasted the decision to form a task force instead of passing legislation, calling it a blo

Tidbits Ag Futures will not trade Sunday night to Monday afternoon morning due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Grain futures will reopen Monday evening at normal times. Exports: Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of 136,000 mts of old crop corn to South Korea and 334,000 mts of old crop soybeans to China. Chinese customs data showed they imported 8.044 million mts of beans from all sources in December 2025, up 1.2% from December 2024. Total imports in 2025 at 111.8

Tidbits On Monday at 11 AM Central Time, the USDA will issue its revised estimates for domestic and world Supply and Demand (S&D), the final 2025 U.S. crop production and yield numbers, the Quarterly Stocks (inventory) of commodities as of 1 December 2025, Winter Wheat and Canola seedings, and Cotton Ginnings. The January USDA reports are one of the top three major report days of every year for grain producers and users. The market action of March futures for the day of & the

Tidbits The CBOT  ag markets will have regular hours today, but no night session tonight and will reopen Friday morning at 8:30 AM Central with a regular closing time. Flash sales: Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of 136,000 mts of old crop beans to China and 231,000 mts of old crop beans to unknown. AgrInvest Commodities’ Eduardo Vanin yesterday morning: “China booked a few U.S. (soybean)  cargoes yesterday. The total is close to 140 cargoes, ~80% of the 12 mil

Tidbits Technically, March corn is looking good after testing its 100 day moving average the past three days and then settled up 4¢ yesterday. March beans traded 6¢ higher early yesterday, then 7¢ lower later before settling down 2¾¢, about 10¢ below its 100 day moving average and a little below the bottom of the gap from 27 October. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is 21.36 is quite supportive. Fundamentally, the market is talking about Brazil’s “bigger than ever” bean crop

Tidbits Interest Rate: Members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) voted 9 to 3 to lower the benchmark Fed Funds rate by a quarter point to a new target range of 3.5% to 3.75%. One vote was to lower the policy rate by half percent, while two votes supported no change. Post meeting comments included that the Federal Reserve will buy $40 billion worth of U.S. treasury bills over the next 30 days to put more money in circulation; the Fed expects one rate cut in 2026 and

Tidbits U.S. crude oil stocks including the SPR rose by 800,000 barrels in the week ended Nov. 28, following a 3.3 million-barrel build the prior week. It was up 0.1% from the prior week and 2.9% year over year, and remained about 3% below the five-year seasonal average. Imports from Mexico dropped by 431,000 bpd to a weekly record low of 131,000 bpd in the week. Venezuela’s oil exports averaged about 921,000 bpd in November, the year’s third-highest monthly level. Overall ex

Tidbits China bought  at least ten more shiploads of U.S. soybeans (~650,000 mts) on Tuesday according to multiple sources within the grain export trade. Eduardo Vanin of AgrInvest Commodities: China continues buying soybeans from the U.S. Purchases have reached 67 cargoes, ~35% of the program. These purchases make no economic sense — they are political purchases. The losses on these soybeans for crush are enormous, which leads the market to think: regardless of price, the st

Tidbits Flash sale: Yesterday morning the USDA announced the sale of 330,000 mts of old crop beans to China. The U.S. administration will soon announce details of payments to farmers hurt by low crop prices and trade disputes, Secretary Rollins said yesterday. She also said that the USDA will be making an announcement about "structural changes" to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, the week after Thanksgiving. She has said all SNAP recip

Tidbits Shutdown: President Trump signed the funding bill to reopen the government. Federal employees should already be back at work. S&D: At 11 AM Central Time today, the USDA will release a World Agricultural Supply & Demand Estimates (WASDE) for the first time since 12 September. USDA will also issue all the daily exports sales in excess of 100,000 mts of grains that should have been reported but were not reported because of the shut-down. The daily sales reports may be mo

Tidbits Corn: There were multiple reports that farmer sales of corn increased yesterday. December corn has tested the 200 day moving average 2 of the last 5 days. That moving average line is at $4.36½ today. Dec corn has been below the 200 day moving average since 6 June. So it is major technical resistance! We do expect corn and beans to weaken in the coming days because Friday next week is the first S&D from USDA in two months. Shutdown: Reportedly 8 Democrat senators have

Tidbits The meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping lasted approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes. At the start of the talks, Trump stated that Beijing and Washington had already reached agreement on many issues and would continue this work during the summit. Following the talks, Trump headed straight to his special plane without making a joint statement. Trump’s comments on board Air Force One were the first we got on how these talks progressed. There has been no official statemen

Tidbits Yesterday, November bean futures were up 4¢, January beans were up 1½, March beans were down ¼, and May beans were down ¾¢. Corn and wheat had similar action, but not as pronounced. Meaning the spread is going up and that is bullish market action. With November soybean deliveries beginning 8 days, it looks like the big grain companies want soybean deliveries. The FSA  reportedly will reopen offices today to process ARC/PLC payments, farm loans, and disaster programs.

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,

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