Grain Comments: 02.10.25

Good morning. Ag markets are quietly mixed coming out of Super Bowl weekend this morning, with corn and wheat having opened last night with tiny gap-lower starts and the soy complex having traded just below unchanged for the last several hours. Tariff/trade talks look to again dominate headlines from a macro standpoint this week, as President Trump over the weekend announced intentions to apply new 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports coming into the US, and pending retaliatory tariffs on a host of nations mentioned last week still loom in the background. Otherwise, the ag world will momentarily turn it’s focus to the USDA tomorrow, though WASDE’s February report is not expected to be much of a market mover. Corn futures this morning are trading a half cent to a penny higher, soybean futures are around a penny lower, and the Chicago wheat market is up 2-3 cents. Products are mixed, soybean meal is up around $1/ton, and soybean oil is down 10-20 points. Outside markets are mostly higher, crude oil futures are up $1/bbl, the Dow Jones index is up 225 points, and the US$ index is up 20-25 points. The S&P500 is up 30 points and the NASDAQ is up 160 points. Gold futures are up $45/oz and made new contract highs overnight, while coffee futures are also trading higher and made new contract highs for the twelfth consecutive session.

Today’s Reports: Weekly Export Inspections

• The CFTC commitment of traders report for the week ending February 4th, released Friday afternoon, showed managed money traders in the week were buyers of 13,495 contracts of corn (now net-long 364,217 contracts), buyers of 535 contracts of soybeans (net-long 57,029), and buyers of 20,340 contracts of Chicago wheat (net-short 90,442). In soy products, funds bought 18,831 contracts of soybean meal (net-short 33,460) and bought 2,448 contracts of soybean oil (net-long 42,215).

• The USDA will release its February WASDE report at 11am central time tomorrow (Tuesday) morning; traders expect corn ending stocks in the report to come in at 1.526 bil bu’s, soybean ending stocks to come in at 374 mil bu’s, and wheat ending stocks to come in at 799 mil bu’s. The wheat figure would be nearly unchanged from last month, while the corn and bean figures would each be down slightly.

• World ending stocks are estimated at 292.52 mmt’s for corn, 127.79 mmt’s for soybeans, and 258.60 mt’s for wheat, which would all be down slightly from January. In South America, traders see both corn and soybean production in Argentina being trimmed slightly but still near 50 mmt’s for both crops, and in Brazil, they see corn production also being trimmed slightly but predict a slight increase for soybean production.