Good morning.
The first full week of trade in the month of October is quietly higher to start out, with the US government seemingly no closer to re-opening today than it was when we went home on Friday and there having been another sizable chunk of the Midwest harvest taken out over the last 48-72 hours. Though we won’t get actual updates on the data, it is expected that corn harvest progress will likely gain steam in the days ahead due to there being many producers getting wrapped up with soybeans this week and last week. Last year, soybean harvest progress nearly doubled in this past week’s report to just under 50% complete, and with weather being what it’s been, we have little reason to assume anything different happened this year. Otherwise, it looks to be another week of trading the push and pull between hedge pressure and China optimism, with there being little new on the latter coming out of the weekend. Corn futures to start Monday morning are trading around a penny higher, soybean futures are trading 4-5 cents higher, and Chicago wheat futures are trading 1-2 cents higher. Products are mixed, soybean meal is trading unchanged to 20 cents/ton lower, and soybean oil is trading 40-50 points higher. Outside markets are mostly higher to start the week, crude oil futures are up 20-30 cents/bbl, the Dow Jones index is up 100 points, and the US$ index is up 70 points; the S&P500 is up 30 points, and the NASDAQ is up 190 points. New contract highs again to start the week for gold futures, and silver futures have also made new contract highs.
Though there was no official data from the CFTC on Friday due to the ongoing government shutdown, private trade groups estimated that managed money traders in the five days ended last Friday were buyers of 2,500 contracts of corn, buyers of 32,500 contracts of soybeans, and were near even in the Chicago wheat market; in the products, funds were estimated to be buyers of around 4,000 contracts of meal and buyers of roughly 500 contracts of oil.
There will be no weekly export inspection data this morning as well. Last week, corn inspections totaled 1.527 MMTs and soybean inspections totaled 594k MTs; in a typical year, soybean inspections usually see a sharp increase over the next 4-5 weeks, but as China remains absent as a buyer, it is unclear at this point whether a similar increase should be expected this year. For corn, inspections typically trend higher from here through most of winter and into spring, but at a slower pace than for soybeans.
Lastly on the report front, there will also be no weekly crop progress data this afternoon. Last year, through October 6th instead of October 5th like this year, corn harvest had reached 30% complete on the week, while soybean harvest had reached 47% complete. This year, figures for both crops are behind in the week prior compared to pace last year, which coupled with the one less day, means today’s actual figures are likely similar but slightly lower to last year’s.
Not necessarily new news but headlines last week showed the US Trade Representative’s Office was set to implement new port fees targeting Chinese-operated and Chinese-built ships beginning next week on October 14th; the fees are set at $50/net ton for Chinese-operated vessels and $18/net ton for Chinese-built vessels. Several of the world’s major shippers like Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have pledged that they will not be passing these costs on, but capacity reductions caused by the new measures could increase rates anyway.
While this isn’t likely to encourage US-Chinese relations, there were also rumors over the weekend that the Chinese had canceled a large block of hotel reservations for the APEC summit in Korea where Trump and Xi are supposed to meet at the end of the month, raising doubts as to whether this meeting actually occurs. We continue to have our doubts as to the results of the meeting between the two, but the meeting being called off together would be a new development that the soy market would likely not react kindly to.
Crude oil futures are trading higher coming out of the weekend in a bit of a ‘sell the rumor, buy the fact’ type trade; OPEC+ agreed, in an unusually brief meeting over the weekend, to increase daily output, but the increases were not by as much as was originally feared, which has produced the higher market action early this morning. The meeting also highlighted growing differences between the cartel’s arguably two most influential members, Saudi Arabia and Russia, as the Saudi’s want to regain lost market share while the Russian’s need oil prices to stay high to continue funding their war efforts.
Ahead of a weekly nation-wide update from CONAB later this evening, IMEA (the Mato Grosso Institute of Agricultural Economics) said last week that soybean planting progress in the state, which is Brazil’s largest producer, had reached just over 15% as of last Friday, which compares to the historical average of 6.1%.
In the Black Sea region, private data shows Ukrainian farmers have harvested roughly 31.5 MMTs of grains and legumes as of last Friday, which is down some 16% from the same period last year. Russia, meanwhile, according to Ag Minister Oksana Lut, has harvested roughly 128 MMTs of grains so far in the season, compared to the 135 MMTs that are expected. Similarly, but not related, the Russian Ag Ministry also said late last week that wheat export taxes would be lowered 20% in the week starting October 8th to 493.4 rubles/ton.
Satellite data from over the weekend shows most of the central and eastern Midwest continued to see warm and dry conditions that were largely conducive to harvest, while rains were seen throughout the western Corn Belt, though were a bit scattered. Parts of KS/NE/IA saw a fairly narrow band of storms that dropped a half inch to an inch generally, while further north, a large part of central ND saw 1.5-2+”.
As we get into this week, these storms through IA and the southwestern Midwest look to continue putting down moisture early in the week today and tomorrow, while models then see a rain event for the mid-south and the Ohio River Valley starting later this afternoon/this evening and going for a few days into the back half of the week. The cool front providing this moisture will drop daytime highs across the Midwest for a day or two, but generally speaking, models see Midwest temps remaining mostly above average through the week this week and into next week.
South American forecasts continued to trend wetter in central and west-central Brazil over the weekend, which is a good sign for soybean planting and the development of the crop that has already made it in the ground. Argentina is still expected to see good rains through most of its growing regions over the next 10 days as well, as there continues to be little in the way of concern here.
Have a great day.
Grain Comments: 10-06-2025
Good morning.
The first full week of trade in the month of October is quietly higher to start out, with the US government seemingly no closer to re-opening today than it was when we went home on Friday and there having been another sizable chunk of the Midwest harvest taken out over the last 48-72 hours. Though we won’t get actual updates on the data, it is expected that corn harvest progress will likely gain steam in the days ahead due to there being many producers getting wrapped up with soybeans this week and last week. Last year, soybean harvest progress nearly doubled in this past week’s report to just under 50% complete, and with weather being what it’s been, we have little reason to assume anything different happened this year. Otherwise, it looks to be another week of trading the push and pull between hedge pressure and China optimism, with there being little new on the latter coming out of the weekend. Corn futures to start Monday morning are trading around a penny higher, soybean futures are trading 4-5 cents higher, and Chicago wheat futures are trading 1-2 cents higher. Products are mixed, soybean meal is trading unchanged to 20 cents/ton lower, and soybean oil is trading 40-50 points higher. Outside markets are mostly higher to start the week, crude oil futures are up 20-30 cents/bbl, the Dow Jones index is up 100 points, and the US$ index is up 70 points; the S&P500 is up 30 points, and the NASDAQ is up 190 points. New contract highs again to start the week for gold futures, and silver futures have also made new contract highs.
Though there was no official data from the CFTC on Friday due to the ongoing government shutdown, private trade groups estimated that managed money traders in the five days ended last Friday were buyers of 2,500 contracts of corn, buyers of 32,500 contracts of soybeans, and were near even in the Chicago wheat market; in the products, funds were estimated to be buyers of around 4,000 contracts of meal and buyers of roughly 500 contracts of oil.
There will be no weekly export inspection data this morning as well. Last week, corn inspections totaled 1.527 MMTs and soybean inspections totaled 594k MTs; in a typical year, soybean inspections usually see a sharp increase over the next 4-5 weeks, but as China remains absent as a buyer, it is unclear at this point whether a similar increase should be expected this year. For corn, inspections typically trend higher from here through most of winter and into spring, but at a slower pace than for soybeans.
Lastly on the report front, there will also be no weekly crop progress data this afternoon. Last year, through October 6th instead of October 5th like this year, corn harvest had reached 30% complete on the week, while soybean harvest had reached 47% complete. This year, figures for both crops are behind in the week prior compared to pace last year, which coupled with the one less day, means today’s actual figures are likely similar but slightly lower to last year’s.
Not necessarily new news but headlines last week showed the US Trade Representative’s Office was set to implement new port fees targeting Chinese-operated and Chinese-built ships beginning next week on October 14th; the fees are set at $50/net ton for Chinese-operated vessels and $18/net ton for Chinese-built vessels. Several of the world’s major shippers like Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have pledged that they will not be passing these costs on, but capacity reductions caused by the new measures could increase rates anyway.
While this isn’t likely to encourage US-Chinese relations, there were also rumors over the weekend that the Chinese had canceled a large block of hotel reservations for the APEC summit in Korea where Trump and Xi are supposed to meet at the end of the month, raising doubts as to whether this meeting actually occurs. We continue to have our doubts as to the results of the meeting between the two, but the meeting being called off together would be a new development that the soy market would likely not react kindly to.
Crude oil futures are trading higher coming out of the weekend in a bit of a ‘sell the rumor, buy the fact’ type trade; OPEC+ agreed, in an unusually brief meeting over the weekend, to increase daily output, but the increases were not by as much as was originally feared, which has produced the higher market action early this morning. The meeting also highlighted growing differences between the cartel’s arguably two most influential members, Saudi Arabia and Russia, as the Saudi’s want to regain lost market share while the Russian’s need oil prices to stay high to continue funding their war efforts.
Ahead of a weekly nation-wide update from CONAB later this evening, IMEA (the Mato Grosso Institute of Agricultural Economics) said last week that soybean planting progress in the state, which is Brazil’s largest producer, had reached just over 15% as of last Friday, which compares to the historical average of 6.1%.
In the Black Sea region, private data shows Ukrainian farmers have harvested roughly 31.5 MMTs of grains and legumes as of last Friday, which is down some 16% from the same period last year. Russia, meanwhile, according to Ag Minister Oksana Lut, has harvested roughly 128 MMTs of grains so far in the season, compared to the 135 MMTs that are expected. Similarly, but not related, the Russian Ag Ministry also said late last week that wheat export taxes would be lowered 20% in the week starting October 8th to 493.4 rubles/ton.
Satellite data from over the weekend shows most of the central and eastern Midwest continued to see warm and dry conditions that were largely conducive to harvest, while rains were seen throughout the western Corn Belt, though were a bit scattered. Parts of KS/NE/IA saw a fairly narrow band of storms that dropped a half inch to an inch generally, while further north, a large part of central ND saw 1.5-2+”.
As we get into this week, these storms through IA and the southwestern Midwest look to continue putting down moisture early in the week today and tomorrow, while models then see a rain event for the mid-south and the Ohio River Valley starting later this afternoon/this evening and going for a few days into the back half of the week. The cool front providing this moisture will drop daytime highs across the Midwest for a day or two, but generally speaking, models see Midwest temps remaining mostly above average through the week this week and into next week.
South American forecasts continued to trend wetter in central and west-central Brazil over the weekend, which is a good sign for soybean planting and the development of the crop that has already made it in the ground. Argentina is still expected to see good rains through most of its growing regions over the next 10 days as well, as there continues to be little in the way of concern here.
Have a great day.
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