Grain Marketing Education, News & Strategies

Highlights Israel launched missile strikes on Iran. Crude oil prices spiked by almost $9 but then traded $3 lower from the peak. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the goal of the strikes on Iran was to attack Iranian missile facilities, “the heart of Iran's nuclear enrichment programme”. He stressed that the main goal was to eliminate the threat to Israel and the operation will continue “for as many days as necessary”. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated t

Highlights Today at 10 AM Mountain Time, the USDA will release its June S&D. The biggest questions are what changes, if any, will USDA make on old crop corn exports and will an increase be offset by increased production from 2024 or a decrease of feed use and will the Brazilian corn crop be increased? USDA increased that crop by 4 million mts last month and most other crop predictions have been catching up to USDA’s number since then and now the average estimate is 131.5 mill

Tidbits U.S. crude oil inventories dropped more than expected last week, it is about 7% below the five-year average, with the weekly production held steady. President Donald Trump has signed an order doubling tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from 25% to 50%. Trump has said the measures, which came into effect on Wednesday, are intended to secure the future of the American steel industry. There has been no retaliation from the EU yet, they had warned of countermeasures o

Tidbits A federal appeals court granted a Trump administration request yesterday to reinstate the tariffs struck down by the U.S. Court of International Trade on Wednesday ruling President Trump overstepped his authority when he cited the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) as justification for levying tariffs. The IEEPA authorizes the President to act when an unusual and extraordinary threat to the United States, originating in whole or substantial part

Tidbits Pro Farmer reports: Some yield concerns are cropping up in Brazil, with some later-planted safrinha corn facing an increased stress in drier biased areas, most notably in center-west areas. For anyone watching our daily rain day charts that is no surprise. The first three locations are Brazil’s safrinha corn area and the dry season clearly started the first week in May. The dry season usually means no rain. Imagine what a corn field looks like if planted in sandy so

Tidbits From 19 February to 28 April, July corn lost 10¢ versus December corn. From 28 April to 13 May, the spread of July corn to December lost another 31½ cents! Yesterday, July corn gained 3½¢ on December corn, which is a huge change in direction. From harvest until deep into the spring, when old crop prices lose on new crop prices, that is a bearish indicator, even in an up market. The opposite is also true. We should have shown more respect for what that spread was tel

Tidbits U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported yesterday morning the U.S. economy contracted 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025. Imports increased 41.3% which reduces GDP as the domestic economy does not produce imports. GDP is the measure of the value of all goods and services produced, not imported. Many companies went on a purchasing spree in the first quarter to avoid the potential price increases caused by tariffs. First quarter contraction was a sharp reversal from t

Tidbits StoneX’s fertilizer guy, Josh Linville, reports NOLA urea values have hit $450 for the first time since the end of 2022. For reference, 2022 ended with December corn prices at $6.00. South Korean flour mills bought 50,000 mts of milling wheat from the U.S. Jordan has issued a tender to buy up to 120,000 mts of milling wheat. The S&P Global Composite (services and manufacturing) Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for the U.S. was reported at 51.2, down from last month

Tidbits There was some progress with China yesterday. China stated it wants to see a number of steps from Donald Trump’s administration before it will agree to trade talks, including showing more respect by reining in disparaging remarks by members of Trump's cabinet. China’s leadership wants the U.S. to appoint a point person for talks with China’s top trade negotiator. California on Wednesday filed a lawsuit seeking to block U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs on

Tidbits The markets will be closed on 18 April, Good Friday. Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of 120,000 mts of old crop corn to Japan. USDA's second Crop Progress report had spring wheat now at 7% planted, corn at 4%, soybean at 2%. Winter wheat conditions fell slightly to 47% good or excellent. The USDA on Monday said it had canceled a $3 billion program for climate-smart farming projects after a review found it did not align with the priorities of the Trump a

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 expe

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. Powe

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 prevail

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 of

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