Good Morning!
Happy 250th and 4th of July to all of you. I hope your weekend was full of ‘safe’ fireworks and some good food from the grill. My mom’s birthday is July 4th, so we always gather for fireworks, some grilling and I make homemade ice cream-hey, it’s a contribution anyway. We’ve had a stretch of dry weather. It’s interesting in that we had so much rain the ponds in some places still have water, while some of the ‘loafers’ in my office are worried we’re going to start trending too hot and dry. I guess it’s true a farmer is rarely totally happy with the weather. Again, I hope your weekend is or was excellent, depending on when you read this. Keep me up-to-date on how your crop is coming along. mbennett@agmarket.net.
This week on the podcast we covered the NASS report and how it may affect us moving forward. Here’s the link. Protecting Your Profits: Grain Market Update with Matt Bennett
The corn and bean markets were rough to start the week but caught some buying after the report and finished the week without much fanfare. Now that the NASS planted acreage report is out of the way, we’ll focus on weather moving forward. While moisture has been plentiful in many areas, severe weather and too much rain might need monitoring as we get closer to harvest. Outside markets likely provided a mixed/negative bias:
CORN
September ‘26 corn looked rough heading into the report but found some footing and posted small gains on the week. Sep settled at $4.23, up ¼. This was 4 off the high and 1 ½ off the low. Sep rallied 1 ¼ cents for the week. Technically, this corn market looks like it’s tried to put a low in for now. While we didn’t get a Commitment-of-Traders report on Friday, it’s likely the funds are still holding a decent net short position. Last week, they were at a 75k short position, so the amount of selling they’d done over far from the contract low still. Again, we’ll trade weather from here on out. We should assume the USDA will extract 100+mb from the balance sheet for both old and new-crop in this upcoming July report. This gets the balance sheet quite tight on any sort of crop issue and/or demand simply rolling along as it is. We aren’t rationing corn demand with cheap prices, so the USDA’s assumption that demand is going to back off likely will need to be adjusted. I’m not in the mood to sell new corn, but selling old-corn needs a plan as buyers won’t be too excited to push bids knowing we have plenty of corn to get to harvest.
DEMAND
Corn demand was mixed this past week. Exports came in at 732 kmt, similar to a week ago. Corn grind for ethanol posted a nice increase on the week, coming in at 106 mb. Stocks were up. Basis was mostly improved:
• My local basis: 15 under Sep (similar bid as to vs July)
• Decatur: 16 over Sep (Similar as well)
• St. Louis River: 40 over Sep (8 cents improved)
CASH CORN
Cash prices were steady to improved on the week. With the small rally, we saw basis steady to improved, particularly on the river where bids appreciated. Given strong export shipments, we’re seeing some of these river bids stay quite strong. I know in some parts of the corn-belt we see awful basis, particularly in North and South Dakota and parts of Minnesota. For growers where there is a ton of corn, having a plan in place to get these bushels moved is paramount. A rally is dependent at this point on weather and/or unforeseen demand-for instance, Chinese buying. I’d be cautious as to let too many of these bushels be handled on the hope strategy. Get your offers in and try to get these old-crop bushels cleaned up before processors tank basis heading into fall. In a year where this much corn is sitting around, that is likely to happen.
2026 CORN
December 2026 corn ended the week at $4.41 ½, unchanged from a week ago. Dec corn may struggle to rally if we don’t see a weather issue. Yes, the crop is rated lower than a year ago and we have less acres this year. However, we have a ton of old-crop corn that will be carried into new-crop, so getting a strong bid between now and harvest may be tough without a bullish surprise. Given where we are on sales, I have no desire to push sales right now as our thought is on-farm storage could pay good dividends this year given how demand continues at a hot pace. I’m still of the opinion Dec27 will need to rally if we don’t see fertilizer prices continue to soften. Most have their prices out now, so I assume a fair bit of this fertilizer has been bought-may not see prices ease much more. A rally for Dec27 could be supportive for corn overall. Here is the link for more info on the AgMarket app. https://hubs.li/Q03qt2Qd0
Corn Market Theme: The corn market looks stable for now, but expect volatility with the most important weather of the growing season in the next few weeks.
BEANS
Beans also started with some selling this past week but rebounded after the NASS report. August beans settled at $11.36 ¼, up 3. This was 6 ½ off the high and 5 ¾ off the low. Beans rallied ½ cent on the week. August meal settled down 1.3 on the week at 305.5, while soy oil also moved lower, settling at 66.77, down 3.15. The bean market caught some life from the acreage report, which wasn’t necessarily bullish. My thought is the trade expected an even bigger acreage number, and that’s why we saw tough markets on Monday. As with corn, now that we’ve quantified the acres, the main thing we’ll trade moving forward is weather. We all know beans are an August crop, but there’s no doubt these beans haven’t gotten off to the best start. While we planted early overall, too much rain in most of the corn-belt has shown up with more yellow beans than most want to see. We have great domestic demand for beans, but there’s no doubt supply is unlikely to back off anytime soon.
DEMAND
Soybean export sales were a marketing-year low at 42 kmt. Basis was mixed:
• My local beans: 15 under August (two cents improved)
• Decatur: 30 over August (similar bid as to vs July)
• River: 30 over (5 cents wider)
CASH BEANS
Cash beans didn’t do much this past week. While we saw some ebb and flow, the price at the end of the week wasn’t much different from earlier in the week. There will be pushes for old beans around processors as crush margins remain strong. Bean oil has backed off some, but at the same time, margins are still strong. Bean crush remains a record each month versus a year ago levels, and I would expect it will remain that way as we continue to build out this renewable diesel industry. With all this said, we’ll need to have offers in on these ‘gambling bushels’ as we’ll likely see end-users back off of bids the closer we get to harvest, similar to with corn.
2026 BEANS
Nov 2026 beans settled at $11.47 ¾, down 8 ½ on the week. New beans didn’t perform as good as old-beans, which makes sense as acres came in pretty stout. Given we have plenty of acres for this coming year, a person may lock in some worst-case scenarios in the event we see good weather from here on out. I would keep flexibility for sure, as a tough August could give us a nice pop for these beans. We can’t forget how strong domestic demand remains to be, and if China steps in and buys the beans they promised they’d buy, bean demand overall should be stout. Therefore, we need to keep our flex but not forget how quickly these bean prices can move lower in the event we see big production.
Bean Market Theme: The bean market has remained resilient but will be trading weather from here to harvest.
As always, use the AgMarket.Net Profitability App to help you figure your break-evens and put your plan in place:
Let me know if I can help in any way. These markets are tricky, but with a plan in place, we can take the emotion out and make better decisions.