BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Highlights From The Moscow Times: European lawmakers on Thursday approved new  tariffs on Russian fertilizer  imports, a move aimed at cutting financial support for Moscow’s war effort, but one that has sparked concerns among EU farmers over rising costs.   More than a quarter of the EU’s nitrogen-based fertilizer imports currently come from Russia, with additional volumes entering from Belarus, a close ally of Moscow. The EU Commission wants to end that dependence.   The tar

Tidbits China ’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs will meet with Brazilian authorities in Brazil  this week to discuss food and nutritional security, sustainable agricultural production and climate change, electronic certification of agricultural products and agricultural trade, and logistics infrastructure, according to Brazil’s Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Carlos Fávaro.   Quotes of Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins :   11 April: "Just finished a p

Highlights India is, by far, the largest world buyer of nitrogen fertilizer and they prefer urea. This past week India finally issued their first urea tender of 2025. It was expected to be issued from late January to the end of February. The nitrogen market-makers have been nervous and nitrogen retailers have been stressed the past few months waiting to see how much urea India would seek to buy and what price they would be willing to pay for it. That information is needed to

Highlights AgrInvest Commodities cash grain trader for exports, Eduardo Vanin , yesterday morning: "The soybean basis rally continues. For May, at +75sk (75¢ over May soybean futures)  new highs, +50¢ per bushel from last week. This is one of the most aggressive weekly rallies I have ever seen. The April/May cash price is nearly equal to the June/July (very little carry) ."   Earlier this week, a conveyor belt system collapsed  at the TGPM grain loading port terminal at the B

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

Tidbits The grain markets will close at 12:05 PM CT this week Tuesday, December 24th. The markets will be closed all day on Wednesday, December 25th. They will open back up on Thursday at 8:30 AM CT, December 26th. The U.S. government pushed through a funding bill at the last minute, President Biden signed it on Saturday, putting off the next fight over the debt ceiling until March, when it will become a problem for President-elect Trump.   The bill included a one-year extens

Highlights The market action this week will be dominated by the looming:  Dock workers’ strike on the US East and Gulf Coasts where 5 of the 10 busiest ports in North America are located. US government shutdown 1 Oct due to a lack of funding being approved by Congress and the President.   The expectation of either happening will be negative for grains, but much worse for the stock markets. Those of you with a stock portfolio (which includes a 401K or IRA) should seriously con

Market Comment After 4 to 6 days of gains, corn, wheat, and beans all closed lower Friday, which is a down day if the markets had been decided higher in the days before Friday. Traders know a lot of things can change over a weekend.   If you are looking for a place or time to get long futures or call options, this is the week to probably do that. The USDA S&D on Thursday at 11 Am Central time usually causes the market to trade lower in the days before the report. The coming S

Highlights Late Saturday afternoon, three of Libya’s oilfields received instructions to resume production, engineers at the fields told Reuters. A standoff between rival political factions shut most of the country's oil fields last week. The resumption order was made by the fields' operator, the Arabian Gulf Oil Company, which did not provide any reasons, according to the engineers. A struggle to control the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) sparked a blockade of oil production and

Tidbits The 3-day ProFarmer tour starts on Tuesday and will cover OH, IN, IL, IA, SD, NE and MN. State yield estimates will be issued each day. ProFarmer will release its own US national yield estimates on Friday. Out of the past 10 years, ProFarmer's corn yield estimate has been below USDA's final yield by an average of 1.5% and soybean estimates averaged 2.6% below USDA’s final yield. In 2023, Pro Farmer's corn yield estimate was 168.1 bpa vs. USDA's final 177.3 (5.0% under

Highlights On Wednesday, a giddy euphoria about the US economy prevailed on the “certain” prospects for lower interest rates in September. Thursday morning, the U.S. jobs data showed 114,000 jobs were added in July; the market expected 176,000. Worse yet, the June new jobs number was revised lower from 206,000 to 179,000 and the unemployment rate jumped to 4.3%, up 0.2%. That was the largest one month increase in many years. Suddenly, the giddy euphoria turned to gloom and do

Highlights Fears that China’s economy will falter and substantially reduce demand for imports of everything has been a consistent bearish theme since 2020 and the intensity increased in 2024. The real estate developers’ crushing debt has been milked for all its worth by everyone who wants grain prices to go down.   One of the two biggest developers, Evergrande, filed bankruptcy in 2023 in the USA and a Hong Kong court ordered Evergrande assets to be liquidated 6 months ago. T

Highlights Early Friday morning CrowdStrike deployed a content update to its Falcon Sensor agents, which triggered a system-level error that prevented Windows operating systems from booting properly. This resulted in a "Blue Screen of Death" or BSOD error on many Windows systems across various sectors, including banking, healthcare, government, and critical infrastructure. There is no indication of a hack; somebody simply made a mistake.     In premarket trading Friday mornin

Highlights The USDA will issue its July S&D at 11 AM Central time today.   Yesterday morning, the government reported that inflation during June declined 0.1%; the market expected it to be up 0.1% (measured by Customer Price Index or CPI). For the past 12 months, the inflation rate was 3.0%; the market expected 3.1%. The expectation of an interest rate cut in September for the past two weeks capped with yesterday’s better-than-expected inflation number sent the stocks sharply

Highlights On Friday, Safras and Mercado, a Global Agribusiness of Brazil, reduced their safrinha corn production estimate by 2.99 mil mts to 83.64 mil mts.   USDA’s monthly cold storage report showed the total beef in the freezers was down 4.7% from a year ago and pork was down 11.7% from a year ago with butter supplies up 9% and cheese stocks down 0.6%. USDA monthly Poultry Report showed in April from a year ago: Egg production: down 1% Layers on feed: down 2% Egg productio

Tidbits Open interest refers to the number of trade positions on the books. The past two days saw the largest increase in open interest of crude oil call options in history. More than 350,000 crude oil call positions were established, surpassing the record of 2019.   Israel will hold a meeting of the Military Cabinet of Ministers today. This will be the 3rd meeting since the attack by Iran over the weekend. The final decision on the military response is expected to be today.

Highlights The US stock markets took a thumping yesterday as JPMorgan and Wells Fargo both reported net interest income well below analysts’ estimates. JPMorgan interest income was less than the previous quarter for the first time in almost three years and its shares had the largest decline since 2020.   Two weeks ago, the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange (BAGE) reduced their Argentine corn production estimate by 2 mil. mts. Yesterday, BAGE whacked another 2.5 mil. mts, down to 49

Highlights StoneX’s fertilizer guy, Josh Linville, reported yesterday afternoon India shocked the global urea market by cutting their purchase in half, down from 724,000 mts to 340,000 mts. Seldom does India buy less than a million mts and often purchases ~1.5 million mts 8 to 10 times a year.   The May urea futures price (FOB NOLA) was down $30 per ton to $272.50 yesterday. There is no daily limit on urea futures. A month ago, May urea futures price was $340 per ton.      Ba

Highlights Russian officials have halted the transport of loaded bushels sold by RIF, a top 2 exporter, due to quality issues.   Market advisor, Kevin Duling of Maupin, Oregon is a wheat guy for sure. He provided us with this information last evening: It was revealed Grain Flower, the 2nd largest Russian grain exporter, could not meet quality specs on over 1 mil mts of wheat with ships in port expecting to be loaded. The Russian government would not grant phytosanitary permit

Tidbits World urea prices this past week were down ~4%, despite the Indian tender. Phosphate prices were mostly unchanged except Single Super Phosphate 20% (SSP) was a bit stronger. MOP prices were mostly steady to up ~3% at around $310 per mt CFR Brazil (delivered to the ports).   Brazil’s farmers are waiting to decide what fertilizer and seeds to purchase for the new crop growing season. Weather and prices are out of whack.   Our clients in the Southeast USA are saying cott