Good morning.
Ag markets are quietly lower this morning in what has been a similar to start to the day as previous sessions this week from the standpoint of volume being low and trading ranges being minimal as there continues to be little fresh input into the space from a fundamental standpoint. We touched on this briefly yesterday, but with the news landscape being what it is and it being the last trading day of the week, we would not be overly surprised to see technical trading dominate a lot of today’s price action. For corn, it will be important to keep an eye on the 200-day moving average today at 4.47 3/4 in the March, and for beans, the bottom side neck-line of the potential head and shoulders pattern discussed this week is near yesterday’s low at 11.14, which marks the line in the sand going into the weekend here. Aside from this and any additional daily sales flashes possibly showing up this morning, we would anticipate another choppy, back-and-forth day of price action to end the week this week, with both the bulls and the bears continuing to struggle for control of the space. Corn futures to start Friday morning are trading 1-2 cents lower, soybean futures are trading 1-3 cents lower, and the Chicago wheat market is trading unchanged to a penny lower. Products are mixed, soybean is around $1/ton lower and soybean oil is up around 30 points. Outside markets are also quiet/mixed, crude oil futures are down around 10 cents/bbl, the Dow Jones index is up 20 points and the US$ index is up 5 points; the S&P500 is up 10 points, and the NASDAQ is up 60 points.
The CFTC this afternoon is set to release another catch-up commitment of traders report with data for the week ending October 28th. Following heavier-than-expected buying by the funds in the week prior, we expect the report will show similar results this afternoon.
Newswires rolled out trade estimates for next week’s Tuesday WASDE update the last couple days; according to Reuters, traders see corn ending stocks coming in at 2.129 bil bu vs 2.154 last month, soybean ending stocks at 308 mil bu vs 290 mil last month, and wheat stocks at 889 mil bu vs 901 mil last month. At the world level, traders see corn stocks at 280.4 MMTs, soybean stocks at 122.6 MMTs, and wheat stocks at 273.0 MMTs. As a reminder, there will be no US production estimate updates made, but there will be global production updates, which would include South America.
Following a 1.5 MMT increase in their Argentine wheat production forecast last week, the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange did not make any additional adjustments in their weekly update this week but noted that harvest had advanced another 11% to 45% complete. For corn and soybeans, corn planting advanced 5% on the week to 44% complete, and soybean planting advanced 9% on the week to 45% complete; conditions for both were similar to last week, with 0% of either crop rated in the poor category.
November export data from the Brazilian Trade Ministry, released on Thursday, showed soybean exports out of the country in the month at 4.197 MMTs, which is up nearly 65% from the same month last year; corn exports at 5.033 MMTs were up 6.5% from last year and meal exports at 1.804 MMTs were up 3.2% from last year. The data also shows exports of coffee, pork and poultry were the only major ag products that saw declines from last year in the month.
According to Chinese sources familiar with the matter, members of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade met with representatives from the US Soybean Export Council on Tuesday, with discussions focused on enhancing ag cooperation between the two sides. According to the sources, representatives from Chinese companies including state grain buyer COFCO were also present at the meeting.
USTR Jameson Greer said on Thursday that the US was prioritizing a stable trade dynamic with China, despite calls by some allies to take a more coordinated approach towards dealing with Beijing. Greer further noted that a policy priority of the administration going forward was to ensure that Canada and Mexico were not used as backdoor export hubs for places like China, Vietnam, Indonesia and others, adding that there were ongoing issues that needed to be resolved within the USMCA trade agreement.
Along similar lines, CBS reported that President Trump is set to meet with officials from both of the previously mentioned Mexico and Canada on Friday at the White House, in a sign that negotiations are still moving forward despite previous threats from Trump that any sort of negotiations on the current agreement could be postponed until a formal review period that is planned to take place later in 2026.
The USDA’s ag attaché to China, in a report released on Thursday, said they see Chinese soybean imports both in the 2024/25 season and 2025/26 season unchanged from previous estimates at 107 MMTs and 106 MMTs respectively that were released in September. The post also said they see Chinese soybean production in 2025/26 at 19.9 MMTs.
Negotiators from the EU agreed this week to once again implement a one-year delay on the implementation of their landmark law to curb deforestation around the globe, approving a delay that is twice as long as the six months that had been touted in recent weeks/months. The regulation, known as EUDR, was previously set to go into effect at the end of this month, following a one-year delay in its implementation that was announced around this time a year ago.
Bloomberg is reporting this morning that the largest oil and gas trade group in the US, the American Petroleum Institute (API), delivered a letter to the White House on Thursday indicating that they had come full-circle on their backing of year-round E15 sales in the US, after voicing opposition to such a move earlier this fall. Spokespeople from the group said API had always supported a path towards the full adoption of year-round E15 in the US but added that legislation proposed earlier this year did not adequately reflect industry needs. Bloomberg says the letter also sought to limit the EPA’s small refinery exemption program, which also continues to be a much-debated issue.
Weather forecasts into the weekend have continued to adjust winter weather potential across generally the northern third of the US the next several days and are seemingly having a hard time pinpointing exactly how much moisture accumulation is going to occur and where. Generally speaking, the models see a smaller auxiliary feature off the bigger Hudson Bay trough working across the Great Lakes area through the day today and into Saturday, with another cut-off low entering the western Midwest from the northwest later in the day on Saturday and then working east through Sunday and into next week.
The EU forecast model run this morning has accumulation from this system generally totaling 1-2″ across the bulk of the area, while a heavier 2-4″ is possible for a band from SW MN through central IA and then also on the downwind side of the Great Lakes.
For South America, models are little changed from the rest of the week and are still seeing a rain event for the northwestern half of Argentina occurring Sunday into Monday, while this precipitation then expands north and east into some of the direr areas of southern Brazil then by the middle of next week. Like we’ve said previously, there will be bouts of hot weather on the temperature side, mostly in southern Brazil and also in southern Argentina, but overall anomaly maps for the next 10 days continue to show the bulk of the two country’s growing regions continue to see mostly normal temps.
Have a great day.
Grain Comments: 12-05-2025
Good morning.
Ag markets are quietly lower this morning in what has been a similar to start to the day as previous sessions this week from the standpoint of volume being low and trading ranges being minimal as there continues to be little fresh input into the space from a fundamental standpoint. We touched on this briefly yesterday, but with the news landscape being what it is and it being the last trading day of the week, we would not be overly surprised to see technical trading dominate a lot of today’s price action. For corn, it will be important to keep an eye on the 200-day moving average today at 4.47 3/4 in the March, and for beans, the bottom side neck-line of the potential head and shoulders pattern discussed this week is near yesterday’s low at 11.14, which marks the line in the sand going into the weekend here. Aside from this and any additional daily sales flashes possibly showing up this morning, we would anticipate another choppy, back-and-forth day of price action to end the week this week, with both the bulls and the bears continuing to struggle for control of the space. Corn futures to start Friday morning are trading 1-2 cents lower, soybean futures are trading 1-3 cents lower, and the Chicago wheat market is trading unchanged to a penny lower. Products are mixed, soybean is around $1/ton lower and soybean oil is up around 30 points. Outside markets are also quiet/mixed, crude oil futures are down around 10 cents/bbl, the Dow Jones index is up 20 points and the US$ index is up 5 points; the S&P500 is up 10 points, and the NASDAQ is up 60 points.
The CFTC this afternoon is set to release another catch-up commitment of traders report with data for the week ending October 28th. Following heavier-than-expected buying by the funds in the week prior, we expect the report will show similar results this afternoon.
Newswires rolled out trade estimates for next week’s Tuesday WASDE update the last couple days; according to Reuters, traders see corn ending stocks coming in at 2.129 bil bu vs 2.154 last month, soybean ending stocks at 308 mil bu vs 290 mil last month, and wheat stocks at 889 mil bu vs 901 mil last month. At the world level, traders see corn stocks at 280.4 MMTs, soybean stocks at 122.6 MMTs, and wheat stocks at 273.0 MMTs. As a reminder, there will be no US production estimate updates made, but there will be global production updates, which would include South America.
Following a 1.5 MMT increase in their Argentine wheat production forecast last week, the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange did not make any additional adjustments in their weekly update this week but noted that harvest had advanced another 11% to 45% complete. For corn and soybeans, corn planting advanced 5% on the week to 44% complete, and soybean planting advanced 9% on the week to 45% complete; conditions for both were similar to last week, with 0% of either crop rated in the poor category.
November export data from the Brazilian Trade Ministry, released on Thursday, showed soybean exports out of the country in the month at 4.197 MMTs, which is up nearly 65% from the same month last year; corn exports at 5.033 MMTs were up 6.5% from last year and meal exports at 1.804 MMTs were up 3.2% from last year. The data also shows exports of coffee, pork and poultry were the only major ag products that saw declines from last year in the month.
According to Chinese sources familiar with the matter, members of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade met with representatives from the US Soybean Export Council on Tuesday, with discussions focused on enhancing ag cooperation between the two sides. According to the sources, representatives from Chinese companies including state grain buyer COFCO were also present at the meeting.
USTR Jameson Greer said on Thursday that the US was prioritizing a stable trade dynamic with China, despite calls by some allies to take a more coordinated approach towards dealing with Beijing. Greer further noted that a policy priority of the administration going forward was to ensure that Canada and Mexico were not used as backdoor export hubs for places like China, Vietnam, Indonesia and others, adding that there were ongoing issues that needed to be resolved within the USMCA trade agreement.
Along similar lines, CBS reported that President Trump is set to meet with officials from both of the previously mentioned Mexico and Canada on Friday at the White House, in a sign that negotiations are still moving forward despite previous threats from Trump that any sort of negotiations on the current agreement could be postponed until a formal review period that is planned to take place later in 2026.
The USDA’s ag attaché to China, in a report released on Thursday, said they see Chinese soybean imports both in the 2024/25 season and 2025/26 season unchanged from previous estimates at 107 MMTs and 106 MMTs respectively that were released in September. The post also said they see Chinese soybean production in 2025/26 at 19.9 MMTs.
Negotiators from the EU agreed this week to once again implement a one-year delay on the implementation of their landmark law to curb deforestation around the globe, approving a delay that is twice as long as the six months that had been touted in recent weeks/months. The regulation, known as EUDR, was previously set to go into effect at the end of this month, following a one-year delay in its implementation that was announced around this time a year ago.
Bloomberg is reporting this morning that the largest oil and gas trade group in the US, the American Petroleum Institute (API), delivered a letter to the White House on Thursday indicating that they had come full-circle on their backing of year-round E15 sales in the US, after voicing opposition to such a move earlier this fall. Spokespeople from the group said API had always supported a path towards the full adoption of year-round E15 in the US but added that legislation proposed earlier this year did not adequately reflect industry needs. Bloomberg says the letter also sought to limit the EPA’s small refinery exemption program, which also continues to be a much-debated issue.
Weather forecasts into the weekend have continued to adjust winter weather potential across generally the northern third of the US the next several days and are seemingly having a hard time pinpointing exactly how much moisture accumulation is going to occur and where. Generally speaking, the models see a smaller auxiliary feature off the bigger Hudson Bay trough working across the Great Lakes area through the day today and into Saturday, with another cut-off low entering the western Midwest from the northwest later in the day on Saturday and then working east through Sunday and into next week.
The EU forecast model run this morning has accumulation from this system generally totaling 1-2″ across the bulk of the area, while a heavier 2-4″ is possible for a band from SW MN through central IA and then also on the downwind side of the Great Lakes.
For South America, models are little changed from the rest of the week and are still seeing a rain event for the northwestern half of Argentina occurring Sunday into Monday, while this precipitation then expands north and east into some of the direr areas of southern Brazil then by the middle of next week. Like we’ve said previously, there will be bouts of hot weather on the temperature side, mostly in southern Brazil and also in southern Argentina, but overall anomaly maps for the next 10 days continue to show the bulk of the two country’s growing regions continue to see mostly normal temps.
Have a great day.
View All News >