Good morning.
Overnight trade to begin wrapping up the week at the CBOT has started much the same as yesterday’s session ended, with the space mostly quietly higher in light volume. As has been the case for some time now, Friday’s in Chicago are trend days, and as the trend at this point is generally sideways, we would expect choppy, two-sided markets to be common throughout the day today. Corn futures to start the day are trading unchanged to a half cent higher, soybean futures are trading 3-4 cents higher, and the Chicago wheat market is trading 2-3 cents higher.
This morning’s weekly export sales report, delayed a day this week for the Monday holiday and with data for the week ending January 15th, is expected to show corn sales in the week between 1.9-3.1 MMTs, soybean sales between 1.5-3.0 MMTs, and wheat sales between 150k-450k MTs; on average, all three figures would be up from last year. The report will be out at its regular 7:30am central time.
Argy crop progress this week followed a similar trend to last week, with the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange reporting a 9% jump in the amount of soybeans rated in the poor condition from last week to 13%, while 11% of the corn crop is rated poor, up from 5% last week. Last year at this time, 24% of the soybean crop was rated poor but just 6% of the corn crop was. The group made no production estimate updates for either crop but did mention that there was a chance weather issues in the north could lead some producers to plant additional soy area, though the change is not expected to be significant at this point.
Sources familiar with the matter say Russian President Putin met with a three-member envoy from the US last night led by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for nearly four hours, with sides expected to now have additional peace talks in Abu Dhabi that would include Ukraine. While the Russian delegation touted the talks as “substantive, constructive, and very frank,” they also added that any sort of lasting peace would be dependent on the resolution of territorial issues and boundaries, which has largely been at the heart of the conflict since its onset now nearly four years ago.
President Trump said on Thursday that he has secured “total and permanent access” to Greenland in a deal with NATO, but sources indicated that this was more of just a framework agreement and anything being reported on specifics was speculation. Secretary General Mark Rutte mentioned that it was now up to other allies to step up their commitment to Arctic security, a drum Trump has been pounding for months now. Greenland’s PM says he is still mostly in the dark agreement, indicating the matter is not final and that there are likely still unresolved issues.
A cold spell that starts today and is expected to last into the first part of next week across much of the central and eastern US has been a lot of the cause for strength in the wheat market this week, with single digit highs and subzero lows across a wide swath of the wheat belt in the southern plains leading to winterkill concerns that haven’t been seen in several years due to a lack of adequate snow cover in a lot of areas. Any damage will be difficult to assess in the short term, but there was clearly some measure of concern-based short covering the last few days as traders paired risk.
US economic data this week showed inflation was mostly steady and largely in line with expectations, with both headline and core PCE ticking up just 0.2% in both October and November, while annual inflation held in the 2.7-2.8% ballpark. Q3 GDP was also revised slightly higher to a final number of 4.4%, which would indicate the economy still seems to be humming right along despite upticks in geopolitical angst again over the last several weeks/months.
Today looks to be the worst of the cold snap across the Midwest, with highs in the northern states not expected to reach zero as far south as northern NE/IA/IL. While not as extreme, the cold air is expected to linger at least through the weekend and into next week, with highs still in the single digits for a lot of areas by Thursday. Along with the cold and like we’ve talked about all week, weekend Midwest weather will also feature a rather large storm system that’s expected to provide heavy snowfall of possibly 10-12″ to a swath from eastern OK all the way through the southern Midwest and then up into the Virginias and PA and then up into the northeast.
Still little to no change again for the overall South American forecast into next week, as models continue to see rains across southern and western Argentina, but warm and dry conditions elsewhere to the east. This dryness stretches into the far southern part of Brazil but then ends here as moisture is expected to continue falling across areas in the north and central parts of the country. Where there has been change is in the back end of the forecast, where models now see this pattern maybe lingering longer into the first part of February vs seeing a return of moisture by then earlier in the week this week.
Have a great day!
Grain Comments 01-23-2026
Good morning.
Overnight trade to begin wrapping up the week at the CBOT has started much the same as yesterday’s session ended, with the space mostly quietly higher in light volume. As has been the case for some time now, Friday’s in Chicago are trend days, and as the trend at this point is generally sideways, we would expect choppy, two-sided markets to be common throughout the day today. Corn futures to start the day are trading unchanged to a half cent higher, soybean futures are trading 3-4 cents higher, and the Chicago wheat market is trading 2-3 cents higher.
This morning’s weekly export sales report, delayed a day this week for the Monday holiday and with data for the week ending January 15th, is expected to show corn sales in the week between 1.9-3.1 MMTs, soybean sales between 1.5-3.0 MMTs, and wheat sales between 150k-450k MTs; on average, all three figures would be up from last year. The report will be out at its regular 7:30am central time.
Argy crop progress this week followed a similar trend to last week, with the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange reporting a 9% jump in the amount of soybeans rated in the poor condition from last week to 13%, while 11% of the corn crop is rated poor, up from 5% last week. Last year at this time, 24% of the soybean crop was rated poor but just 6% of the corn crop was. The group made no production estimate updates for either crop but did mention that there was a chance weather issues in the north could lead some producers to plant additional soy area, though the change is not expected to be significant at this point.
Sources familiar with the matter say Russian President Putin met with a three-member envoy from the US last night led by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for nearly four hours, with sides expected to now have additional peace talks in Abu Dhabi that would include Ukraine. While the Russian delegation touted the talks as “substantive, constructive, and very frank,” they also added that any sort of lasting peace would be dependent on the resolution of territorial issues and boundaries, which has largely been at the heart of the conflict since its onset now nearly four years ago.
President Trump said on Thursday that he has secured “total and permanent access” to Greenland in a deal with NATO, but sources indicated that this was more of just a framework agreement and anything being reported on specifics was speculation. Secretary General Mark Rutte mentioned that it was now up to other allies to step up their commitment to Arctic security, a drum Trump has been pounding for months now. Greenland’s PM says he is still mostly in the dark agreement, indicating the matter is not final and that there are likely still unresolved issues.
A cold spell that starts today and is expected to last into the first part of next week across much of the central and eastern US has been a lot of the cause for strength in the wheat market this week, with single digit highs and subzero lows across a wide swath of the wheat belt in the southern plains leading to winterkill concerns that haven’t been seen in several years due to a lack of adequate snow cover in a lot of areas. Any damage will be difficult to assess in the short term, but there was clearly some measure of concern-based short covering the last few days as traders paired risk.
US economic data this week showed inflation was mostly steady and largely in line with expectations, with both headline and core PCE ticking up just 0.2% in both October and November, while annual inflation held in the 2.7-2.8% ballpark. Q3 GDP was also revised slightly higher to a final number of 4.4%, which would indicate the economy still seems to be humming right along despite upticks in geopolitical angst again over the last several weeks/months.
Today looks to be the worst of the cold snap across the Midwest, with highs in the northern states not expected to reach zero as far south as northern NE/IA/IL. While not as extreme, the cold air is expected to linger at least through the weekend and into next week, with highs still in the single digits for a lot of areas by Thursday. Along with the cold and like we’ve talked about all week, weekend Midwest weather will also feature a rather large storm system that’s expected to provide heavy snowfall of possibly 10-12″ to a swath from eastern OK all the way through the southern Midwest and then up into the Virginias and PA and then up into the northeast.
Still little to no change again for the overall South American forecast into next week, as models continue to see rains across southern and western Argentina, but warm and dry conditions elsewhere to the east. This dryness stretches into the far southern part of Brazil but then ends here as moisture is expected to continue falling across areas in the north and central parts of the country. Where there has been change is in the back end of the forecast, where models now see this pattern maybe lingering longer into the first part of February vs seeing a return of moisture by then earlier in the week this week.
Have a great day!
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