Grain Comments: 03.07.25

Good morning. Happy Friday. Choppy/lower trade has been seen at the CBOT to start end-of-week trading, with volume on both corn and beans fairly light compared to recent days. Follow-through buying from Thursday lasted all of about 10 minutes to start the night session, before prices generally drifted backwards into the morning hours. If it wasn’t the case already, the back-and-forth tariff talk from this week has certainly produced a more ‘risk-off’ environment, with this afternoon’s fund position data likely to show a more neutral position across the grain space than has been seen in recent weeks. Generally speaking though, we continue to see it most probable that trade remains rangebound, those though ranges could stay relatively large. Corn futures this morning are trading either side of unchanged, soybean futures are trading 1-2 cents lower, and the Chicago wheat market is down 6-7 cents. Products are higher, soybean meal is up around 50 cents/ton, and soybean oil is up 5-10 points. Outside markets are mixed, crude oil futures are up around $1/bbl, the Dow Jones index is up 10 points, and the US$ index is down 30 points. The S&P500 is up 5 points and the NASDAQ is up 30 points.

Today’s Reports: Monthly Non-Farm Payrolls; Monthly Unemployment; CFTC Commitment of Traders

• Friday’s delivery slate according to the CME Group included another 272 contracts of soybean meal, 128 contracts of soybean oil, 44 contracts of rice, 23 contracts of corn, 33 contracts of KC wheat, and 3 contracts of Chicago wheat.

• Census export data for the month of January was released on Thursday; data showed corn exports in the month at 242.6 mil bu’s, compared to the USDA’s inspection figure of 217.2 mil bu’s. Soybean exports were seen at 191.5 mil bu’s compared to 151.0 from the USDA, and wheat exports totaled 48.3 mil bu’s compared to 48.1 from USDA. Also of note, soybean oil exports of 212.7k tons were the largest monthly figure since 2010, and ethanol exports of 749.7 mil liters were the largest monthly figure since April of last year.

• Chinese customs data for the first two months of 2025 showed soybean imports at 13.61 mmt’s, which was up 4.4% from the same two-month period in 2024. Data from January and February are combined due to the Lunar New Year holiday having the possibility to fall in either month depending on the year. Traders anticipate March imports totaling around 6 mmt’s, which would be up from 5.54 mmt’s last March.

• For next week’s March WASDE report, a survey of Bloomberg analysts showed the average trade guess for corn ending stocks at 1.518 bil bu’s, while soybean ending stocks are seen at 380 mil bu’s and wheat ending stocks are seen at 799 mil bu’s; all three figures would be similar to those seen in the February report. World stocks are also seen similar to last month, with corn estimated at 289.9 mmt’s, soybeans at 124.6 mmt’s and wheat at 257.7 mmt’s.

• Obviously subject to change between now and then, but as it stands today, April 2nd appears to be the next key date in the current tariff saga, as this is the day when proposed reciprocal tariffs are set to go into effect and also now the new expiration date on the delay of the 25% tariffs for goods under the USMCA deal that was announced yesterday. At this point, we would categorize it

• Brazil’s President Lula on Thursday announced that the government would be eliminating import tariffs on several food products including beef, coffee, corn, sunflower oil, olive oil, sugar, and pasta in an effort to lower inflation that has been hurting his popularity in the polls. Sources familiar say the change is expected to go into affect “in the next few days,” and last as long as it is needed.

• Private consultancy FranceAgriMer on Friday showed the French wheat crop as of March 3 at 74% good or very good, which was up 1% from last week and also up slightly from last year. The group added that winter temps have been warmer than normal, while rainfall has been near average to this point.

• Barge shipments down the Mississippi River in the week ending March 1st totaled 422k tons according to the USDA, which was up 3% from the week prior; corn shipments at 234k tons were up 3% also, and soybean shipments at 162k tons were down 3.6%. STL barge freight rates declined 8 cents on the week to $18.35/short ton.