Grain Comments: 09.15.26

Good morning. Overnight ag trade has been lower throughout much of the session to get Tuesday started, though could again be described as dull and uneventful with trading ranges fairly narrow and volume on the lighter side amid more of the same general price inputs we’ve discussed for weeks now. With funds already record long the corn and bean markets, we would think the looming China meeting and pending arrival of more widespread harvest will slow money flows into the space just a bit into next week, but that also means there is increased risk for more exaggerated corrections should those fund traders get the urge to trim their positions back down. Unless actual US yield reports start to come in well below current estimates or South America starts to have serious weather issues as it pertains to planting, we feel the easy money on the upside has probably already been made. Bull markets must be fed daily if they’re to keep churning at the pace we’ve seen over the last several weeks.

Corn futures to start Tuesday are trading 3-4 cents lower, soybean futures are trading 5-6 cents lower, and the Chicago wheat market is trading 5-6 cents lower also.

📅 Today’s Reports: CONAB Monthly Crop Production; NOPA Monthly Soybean Crush; API Energy Stocks

• The CME’s September delivery slate for Tuesday had another 43 corn contracts assigned, along with 10 contracts of soybean oil, 6 contracts of meal, and 8 contracts of rough rice.

• At the state level on corn harvest, MO is 23% complete, 7% ahead of last year, IL is 3% ahead of last year at 8% complete, and IA and IN are both trailing last year at 2% complete. For soybeans, IL is 1% ahead of last year at 4% complete, while IN, MO and ND are all at 3% complete; IA is still at 0%, down 1% from last year.

• NOPA is set to release monthly soybean crush data later this morning for the month of August; traders see the report showing US crush in the month at 211.553 mil bu, which would be a three-month low and down a little over 2% from the July figure though it would still be a new August record. Soybean oil stocks in the US as of the end of August are estimated at 1.257 bil lbs, which would be down 8% from July.

• Brazil’s USDA equivalent CONAB will be out this morning with monthly crop production data; traders see the report – which will be the final for the old crop ahead of next month’s marketing year shift – showing not a lot of change from last month, with soybean production seen increasing just 0.3 MMTs to 180.8 MMTs and corn production seen steady from last month at 143.0 MMTs. Data is due out at 7am central time this morning.

• Staying in Brazil, AgRural reported this week that soybean planting progress across the country reached 0.4% complete as of late last week, while first crop corn planting has reached 22% complete. The corn figure is 5% ahead of the same day last year. The group said in a statement that fieldwork continues to be mostly concentrated in the south and that frosts last week in RGDS had caused some replant to occur.

• In Europe, the French Farm Ministry this week trimmed another almost million tons off its corn production figure for the current season, now pegging output at just 8.1 MMTs; if accurate, this would be the smallest French corn crop since at least 1980.

• Confirmation of yesterday’s headlines regarding a halt in energy infrastructure attacks by Russia and Ukraine remains lacking this morning, casting doubt over whether or not progress has actually been scored in the region this week. Zelensky said on Tuesday that it would only participate if the US ensures Russia does the same and Russia said it welcomed the proposal, but the statements stop short of actually confirming a finalized agreement between the two.

• In the financial world, the CME’s FedWatch tool this morning shows a more than 90% chance that policy makers with the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates a quarter percent at this week’s FOMC meeting, which begins today and will wrap up tomorrow on Wednesday. While a quarter-point move likely doesn’t have a lot of short term economic impact, trader focus will be on the outlook for additional increases into the end of the year as inflation concerns continue to linger.

• In what the head of the EPA called “the largest deregulatory action of the US power sector in history,” the group on Tuesday announced it was repealing limits on greenhouse gas emissions emitted by fossil fuel-fired power plants. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said at a press conference this week that actions to curtail planet-heating pollution under Biden and Obama led to sharply higher energy prices and limited the US from reaching its full energy potential.

The short term forecast for this week was largely unchanged overnight, with potentially heavy rainfall set to begin impacting parts of eastern KS/NE and then over into IA and the broader north-central part of the Midwest today/tonight and then continuing through the end of the week and into the weekend. Some models have rainfall totals over the next week possibly reaching upwards of 5-7″ in pockets throughout the region, which could produce localized flooding issues and standing water in fields just as harvest is beginning