Good morning.
It’s a mostly higher Monday to start the new week in the ag space this morning, with wheat futures seeing two-sided price action while the rest of the space continues to build on the gains seen the back part of the week last week. We talked about it on Friday, but price discovery from here really becomes quite simple in the short term; weather as it relates to crop production (both in the US and Europe) will be input number one, with China business and the level and frequency at which it occurs being input number two. Other items like the Middle East, biofuel developments, and global trade will also continue to get some attention, but for the most part, it’s the two variables mentioned at the start that have the most to say about where corn and soybean prices go the rest of summer.
The corn market to start Monday is trading around 5-6 cents higher, soybeans are trading 5-8 cents higher, and the Chicago wheat market is trading 1-2 cents lower.
Friday afternoon’s CFTC Commitment of Traders report for the week ending July 7th showed managed money traders in the week were buyers of 58,868 contracts of corn (+12,659), buyers of 37,478 contracts of soybeans (+68,679), and buyers of 6,705 contracts of Chicago wheat (-62,325); in the soy products, funds bought 17,184 contracts of meal (+19,025) and sold 3,003 contracts of oil (+89,228).
Mentioned it on Friday, but several sources familiar with the situation, along with Russian officials, have confirmed that shipping through the Don-Azov Channel, a waterway linking the Don River with the Sea of Azov, has been temporarily suspended due to ongoing Ukrainian attacks. Nearly a quarter of Russia’s annual wheat exports transit the body of water on which Ukraine’s military says it has struck upwards of 20 vessels in recent days/weeks. There was no timeline given for how long the suspension would remain in place.
Staying in the region, government export data from Ukraine shows the country has already shipped more than a million tons of grains in the season started July 1, which compares to just 395k tons through the same period a year ago. A source familiar with the matter said the increase was largely the result of higher carry-in stocks that were the result of Russian attacks limiting shipping towards the end of the previous marketing year.
Coceral, a grain trade association for the EU and Britain, on Friday cut crop forecasts for the region due to ongoing heat and dryness, particularly in the western growing regions. The group cut its corn production estimate for the EU + the UK from 57.2 MMTs previously to 52.7 MMTs now, while trimming soft wheat production nearly 3 million tons to 140.8 MMTs; total grain production was cut nearly 9 million tons to 286.6 MMTs, which compares to 310.0 last year.
The Rosario Grain Exchange in Argentina said in a report Friday that despite wheat planting in the country chugging along and surpassing the 80%-mark, farmer sales of the new crop are slow and have only reached around two million tons so far. The exchange said sales typically total around 16 or 17% of expected production by this point in the year but have only reached 10 or 11% in the current season due to lower forward prices and concern regarding a pullback in production from the previous year.
Weekend weather across the Midwest featured ongoing scattered thunderstorm/rainfall activity across the southern and south-central parts of the region, while areas generally north of I-80 were on the dry side as high pressure ridging has set-up and is shoving additional rains further north into the central parts of Canada. We mentioned last week that how ridge development went in the forecast over the weekend would be important, and the models this morning continue to see high pressure generally breaking down or lessening by the weekend and into next week, which would be crop-friendly.
There’s no perfect model agreement this morning, but both the EU and the GFS are seeing some sort of troughing feature come back into the eastern US, with the GFS maybe a day or two earlier in this development next week than its counterpart is. Heat will be a concern this week across the northern and northwestern parts of the Corn Belt, but the rest of the region to the south and east doesn’t look like it is much more than regular summertime heat as triple digit highs are not expected.
Have a great day.
Grain Comments: 07-13-2026
Good morning.
It’s a mostly higher Monday to start the new week in the ag space this morning, with wheat futures seeing two-sided price action while the rest of the space continues to build on the gains seen the back part of the week last week. We talked about it on Friday, but price discovery from here really becomes quite simple in the short term; weather as it relates to crop production (both in the US and Europe) will be input number one, with China business and the level and frequency at which it occurs being input number two. Other items like the Middle East, biofuel developments, and global trade will also continue to get some attention, but for the most part, it’s the two variables mentioned at the start that have the most to say about where corn and soybean prices go the rest of summer.
The corn market to start Monday is trading around 5-6 cents higher, soybeans are trading 5-8 cents higher, and the Chicago wheat market is trading 1-2 cents lower.
Friday afternoon’s CFTC Commitment of Traders report for the week ending July 7th showed managed money traders in the week were buyers of 58,868 contracts of corn (+12,659), buyers of 37,478 contracts of soybeans (+68,679), and buyers of 6,705 contracts of Chicago wheat (-62,325); in the soy products, funds bought 17,184 contracts of meal (+19,025) and sold 3,003 contracts of oil (+89,228).
Mentioned it on Friday, but several sources familiar with the situation, along with Russian officials, have confirmed that shipping through the Don-Azov Channel, a waterway linking the Don River with the Sea of Azov, has been temporarily suspended due to ongoing Ukrainian attacks. Nearly a quarter of Russia’s annual wheat exports transit the body of water on which Ukraine’s military says it has struck upwards of 20 vessels in recent days/weeks. There was no timeline given for how long the suspension would remain in place.
Staying in the region, government export data from Ukraine shows the country has already shipped more than a million tons of grains in the season started July 1, which compares to just 395k tons through the same period a year ago. A source familiar with the matter said the increase was largely the result of higher carry-in stocks that were the result of Russian attacks limiting shipping towards the end of the previous marketing year.
Coceral, a grain trade association for the EU and Britain, on Friday cut crop forecasts for the region due to ongoing heat and dryness, particularly in the western growing regions. The group cut its corn production estimate for the EU + the UK from 57.2 MMTs previously to 52.7 MMTs now, while trimming soft wheat production nearly 3 million tons to 140.8 MMTs; total grain production was cut nearly 9 million tons to 286.6 MMTs, which compares to 310.0 last year.
The Rosario Grain Exchange in Argentina said in a report Friday that despite wheat planting in the country chugging along and surpassing the 80%-mark, farmer sales of the new crop are slow and have only reached around two million tons so far. The exchange said sales typically total around 16 or 17% of expected production by this point in the year but have only reached 10 or 11% in the current season due to lower forward prices and concern regarding a pullback in production from the previous year.
Weekend weather across the Midwest featured ongoing scattered thunderstorm/rainfall activity across the southern and south-central parts of the region, while areas generally north of I-80 were on the dry side as high pressure ridging has set-up and is shoving additional rains further north into the central parts of Canada. We mentioned last week that how ridge development went in the forecast over the weekend would be important, and the models this morning continue to see high pressure generally breaking down or lessening by the weekend and into next week, which would be crop-friendly.
There’s no perfect model agreement this morning, but both the EU and the GFS are seeing some sort of troughing feature come back into the eastern US, with the GFS maybe a day or two earlier in this development next week than its counterpart is. Heat will be a concern this week across the northern and northwestern parts of the Corn Belt, but the rest of the region to the south and east doesn’t look like it is much more than regular summertime heat as triple digit highs are not expected.
Have a great day.
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