Grain Comments: 10.31.25

Good morning. Happy Halloween. Ag markets are mostly lower this morning to start Friday trade in what has been a noticeably quieter overnight trading session compared to yesterday. We don’t see the dust on the China situation as quite completely settled yet though, meaning choppy trade is likely to emerge again at some point throughout the morning as the day crowd makes it back to their desks. From here, its all about actual cash business in our opinion, which will admittedly be hard to gauge in the short term due to the ongoing government shutdown; China pledging to buy any quantity of US beans in whatever timeframe they want is great, but until there is evidence this is actually happening, we would see the room to run above the $11 mark as being somewhat limited on spot soybean futures. Corn futures to start Friday morning are trading 2-3 cents lower, soybean futures are trading 3-5 cents lower, and the Chicago wheat market is trading 4-6 cents lower. Products are lower, soybean meal is down $1-2/ton and soybean oil is down 30-40 points. Outside markets are mixed, crude oil futures are down 20-30 cents/bbl, the Dow Jones index is up 110 points, and the US$ index is up 10-15 points; the S&P500 is up 50 points and the NASDAQ is up 380 points.

Today’s Reports: There will be no CFTC Commitment of Traders data

• Potentially lost a bit in all the happenings around yesterday’s Trump-Xi meeting was news that both sides had also agreed to a one-year suspension of the maritime vessel fees that had been applied in recent weeks, further signaling a desire to de-escalate the situation by both sides. Other than actual purchases beginning to show up, Trump says the next step in the process will likely be a visit to China sometime in April though this is obviously subject to change.

• And as it pertains to the actual purchases, rumors are again circulating this morning that China’s state-owned COFCO has bought another four cargoes of beans from the US again for shipment in either December or January off the PNW. The total volume is reportedly around 250k MTs.

• Last note on the China situation this morning, USTR Jameson Greer said on Thursday that the US’s probe into China’s compliance on the Phase One trade agreement would remain open despite a broader deal being reached between the two sides. Said Greer Thursday during an interview with Fox Business, “We didn’t solve every problem in the US-China relationship today.”

• The Buenos Aires Grain Exchange, in a weekly update, said they hadn’t made any wheat production estimate adjustments yet due to recent frosts in the southern growing regions but they would likely have more information regarding the situation in coming days. The report showed harvest progress had advanced 3.1% on the week to 8.4% complete, while corn planting advanced just 1.2% on the week to 35% complete as rains slowed progress in most areas.

• The European Commission said in a recent update that it sees total grain production out of the bloc in the 2025/26 season now at 285.7 MMTs, which is up from their September estimate of 284.2 MMTs on adjustments higher in both wheat and barely production.

• Other news out of Europe this morning includes a weekly update from FranceAgriMer, which showed French corn harvest progress at 82% complete as of Monday, up from 75% the week prior and ahead of the five-year average at 74%. Meanwhile, 68% of the soft wheat crop was planted as of Monday also, up from 57% last week and 38% at this time last year.

• As October comes to a close, several sources in Russia say the country’s wheat exports in the month likely reached somewhere between 5.1 and 5.7 MMTs, which if accurate, would be down from last year’s 5.6 MMTs but above the 5.1 MMTs of exports seen in September which was down around 30% from normal.

• Despite seeing interest rate cuts out of both the US and Canada earlier this week, the European Central Bank on Thursday somewhat surprisingly left rates unchanged for the third consecutive meeting, with the group noting that its 26-member’s view of inflation was “broadly unchanged” from last month.

• Weather forecasts this morning show just very light/scattered precip potential across the Midwest this weekend, with totals generally not amounting to even a tenth. The weather will be conducive for getting out the last bit of harvest in the eastern belt, with this drier pattern expected to continue into next week while temperatures are also seen rising again over the next few days and looking to stay this way through the first part of November.