BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Highlights China has responded to Donald Trump's trade tariffs by raising duties on U.S. goods by from 34% to 84% and by appealing to the...

Highlights Trump Tariffs announced in the Rose Garden of the White House at a press conference 4 to 5 PM Eastern Time yesterday applied to 180 countries. The list below was identified as the greatest offenders. Note that Mexico and Canada are not on the list: Regarding Canada and Mexico, Trump’s Executive order stated, in part:     “With respect to articles from Canada and Mexico, I have imposed additional duties on certain goods to address a national emergency resulting from

Tidbits Corn was sharply lower yesterday because of the weekly ethanol report (see below) and the fear of Monday’s USDA acreage and inventory report as well as continued tariff rhetoric. New orders for durable goods in the U.S.  unexpectedly increased $2.7 billion or up 0.9% in February versus January following an upwardly revised 3.3% jump in January. The market expected February durable goods to be down 1%. Later this morning, we will get the U.S. GDP update. The market exp

Tidbits Federal Reserve  Chairman Jerome Powell said yesterday afternoon interest rates will not be changed this month, but he weighed in on the state of the US economy. His outlook was not reassuring, which was not a surprise knowing he hates Trump. Powell said Trump’s policies are one reason why inflation is reigniting. Powell said the Fed sharply reduced its 2025 growth projection for the U.S. economy and noted that uncertainty around the slowing economy is increasing. Pow

Highlights Corn deliveries on March futures have been zero since 7 March, so a search for a reason for yesterday’s 14¢ loss on May corn by late morning found no fundamental reason other than the price of eggs had fallen from $8.17 earlier this month to $5.51 yesterday according to the USDA, which reported the egg inventory increased 5.2% the past week. A bit later, we learned ethanol production was down 31,000 barrels per day from last week, but still above 1.06 million barre

Tidbits U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said President Trump is in constant contact with both Mexico and Canadian officials regarding a possible agreement that would pull the 25% tariffs applied on Tuesday. He said Mexico's team was cooperating; Canada's team not so much.    On Tuesday, the stock markets and crude oil market crashed, in large part, due to a GDP forecasting model used by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. The dollar is now 104.25 on the index, down

Highlights First thing this morning the USDA will release its projections for 2025  crops and that includes the S&D with acres planted, yields, and price projections. The average estimate for tomorrow’s acreage numbers are 93.6 million for corn, 84.4 million for soybeans, and 46.7 million for wheat. Drew Learner, Senior Agricultural Meteorologist at World Weather expects drier than normal weather for Brazil’s safrinha corn:   “While monsoon precipitation is expected to prevai

Highlights March CBOT options expire today which usually means lower prices. The expected hot weather in Argentina this weekend sent soybeans higher yesterday, but not so much the corn. We think the faint rumors from the New York Times of a Trump trade deal with China boosted soybeans more than weather. Due to high prices, India cancelled the purchase of 70,000 mts of Malaysian palm oil which had been scheduled for delivery March through June. Sunflower oil futures rose above

Agriculture futures markets are closed Monday, President’s Day. Highlights Was yesterday’s soybean action  the signal that the market has started to believe the monster soybean crop in Brazil will get harvested? Or was it the tariff threats, the possibility the war in Eastern Europe will soon come to an end, or the sharply lower crude oil reducing the value of bean oil, or something else? In any case, March beans traded lower than any day since 17 January. During the course o

Highlights China’s government and financial sectors returned to work yesterday after the Lunar New Year holiday. Equity and commodity trading was remarkably calm given all the tariff talk, but the yuan was weak. That most likely comes from the consensus that China’s economy is wounded by weak financial, perhaps an unstable political situation and cannot battle Trump nearly as strongly as it did during his first term. All of Asia remains fixated on China and its next response

Highlights 247AG weather predicts South American weather will be wet in the north, where they do not want it and dry in the south where they do want wet weather until next Thursday when the following 7 days will be the opposite. This forecast by several weather outfits is what rallied corn and beans the past two days, but probably by tomorrow, the market will trade next week's expected change of weather. Argentina’s thirsty crops will get some water, but that forecast is very

Tidbits Crop conditions in Argentina  continue to get worse. Soybeans are rated 28% poor condition vs. 21% last week and 14% a year ago. Corn is rated 20% poor vs. 14% last week and 6% a year ago. However, in their 2023 drought, 60% of the bean crop and 47% of the corn crop were in poor condition. The Buenos Aires Grains Exchange announced cuts to estimated production for Argentina's 2024/25 soybean and corn crops by 1 million mts each to 49.6 million mts and 49 million mts,

Highlights NOPA crush  in December was 206.604 million bushels, up 7% from November and up 6% from a year ago. This is the largest monthly NOPA crush ever recorded. New crush records have been set in the past four months and 10 of the past 12 months. The range of expectations were 202.0 and 209.5 million bushels, with the average of 205.5. Soy oil stocks were 1.236 billion pounds, up from 1.084 billion last month, but 17 million pounds less than expected. Soy oil inventory is

Due to a National Day of Mourning for former President Jimmy Carter, equity and stock option markets will be closed today. Agricultural futures markets will close early at 12:15 pm CDT today and re-open this evening at normal times. Highlights As you know, we have been encouraging you soybean owners to get your beans sold by 12 January. That recommendation has nothing to do with tomorrow’s USDA world S&D. The soybean sale recommendation is based on the historical fact that wh

Highlights The USDA released its November crush numbers yesterday after the close:  Soybean crush was 210 million bu., 10 million more than the same month a year ago. Canola crush was 211,013 tons, down from 219,843 tons a year ago. Corn crushed for all purposes was 514 million bu., up 1% from a year ago. Corn for ethanol crush was 465 million bu., up 2% from a year ago.   StoneX raised its estimate for Brazil's 2024/25 soybean crop 5.2 million mts to 171.4 million mts (USDA

Tidbits March corn settled a quarter cents higher yesterday, but higher none-the-less for the sixth consecutive day.    More importantly, March corn settled above the 200 day moving average price two consecutive days, confirming a technical breakout to the upside. The dry  weather forecast for Argentina and Southern Brazil is the leading fundamental factor, but bullish technical signals are here to stay for a while as well. The weekly export sales had corn sales above the hig

Tidbits Computer selling  completely got out of hand yesterday. It all started because the market continues to expect the largest ever soybean crop in Brazil, which is the same expectation every year for the last 50+ years. Beans eventually pulled corn lower and then corn pulled wheat lower. The economic problems in Brazil, Congress may not be able to get a bill passed to keep the government running into the new year, and uncertainty about the biofuel guidelines also added to

Tidbits U.S. inflation  at the retail level increased 0.3% in November, the most in 7 months, but the Federal Reserve is still expected to cut interest rates next week to support job growth. However, the decline in the inflation rate has come to an end and the Federal Reserve's inflation goal of 2% per year is well below the November annual rate of 3.6%.   Yesterday, the Bank of Canada reduced its base interest by 50 basis points (one-half percent) to 3.25%. Just a few months

Tidbits Yesterday morning, the USDA reported the sale of 30,000 mts of old crop soybean oil and 35,000 mts of rice to South Korea.   Cargill began laying off employees across its operations on Tuesday in a drive to slash headcount by 5%. Cargill is facing a downturn in returns in cattle, grains and oilseeds businesses. In Minnesota, home to its headquarters, Cargill plans to terminate 475 employees. Cargill has more than 160,000 employees worldwide, and a spokesperson said al

Tidbits Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of 132,000 mts of old crop soybeans to China.    The 2 to 5 trading days before the delivery notices  are issued are usually more down days than up. December deliveries will be assigned to the oldest long positions tomorrow. Yesterday was the last day to liquidate December positions to avoid any chance of delivery. Soft red winter wheat was down 4 of the last 6 days; Dec hard red winter wheat was down 4 of the last 6 days