Good Morning!
What a week! The weather was good enough for us to get our spotting in completed and some hay baled. However, a person didn’t want to be looking at the markets too much. More on that later. We had a dry week with some rain forecasted for this weekend and more to come through mid-week. I know many to the north of us are in need of rain, so I hope the forecast verifies for you all. It’s been great hay weather, but the problem for many around us is we all had plenty else to be doing. Between spraying, side-dress, mowing, raking and replant, a person doesn’t want to be in a hurry driving on rural roads. As always, I appreciate the feedback-it sounds like most are happy with where they stand at this point. Keep me posted. mbennett@agmarket.net.
This past week on the podcast, we talked about the selling spree from the funds and looked at the meltdown with charts included. Here’s the link. Protecting Your Profits: Grain Market Update with Matt Bennett
Corn and beans had an awful week-there’s no way to sugar-coat it. A complete meltdown for all charts by the end of the week occurred, and the market is looking for footing. With a good overall start to the crop combined with a favorable weather forecast, the market doesn’t have concern with production here in ’26. Outside markets saw weekly changes as follows as of the time of this writing prior to Friday’s close.
CORN
July ‘26 corn started the week in a bad mood and stayed consistent the whole week. July settled at $4.17 ½, down 9. This was 7 off the high and 1 ½ off the low. July lost 29 ¼ cents for the week. Technically, this corn market appears to have given up the ghost. No corn contracts closed the week without violating all moving averages. The funds are selling the daylights out of corn after getting one of the biggest longs we’ve ever seen. My gut tells me the lack of Chinese corn purchases after what was described as a positive meeting between Presidents Xi and Trump has been viewed as a negative. Given the good start to the 2026 growing season, the market appears convinced we’ll have plenty of corn whether talking old or new. To be fair, the weather forecast doesn’t offer anything in the bullish realm, while crop conditions at 67% good/excellent shows the ability to raise another big yield. The big question mark that could support us eventually is the thought corn acres might slip lower from the March numbers. I know this corn market is aggravating, but we need to keep our perspective and do our best to learn from the rally to the highest levels of the last three years to what we’ve seen the last few sessions.
DEMAND
Corn demand was mixed this past week. Exports came in at 883 kmt, over 100k lower than a week ago. Corn grind for ethanol posted an increase on the week, coming in at 107 mb. Stocks were unchanged. Basis was mostly improved:
• My local basis: 15 under July (five cents improved)
• Decatur: 15 over July (three cent improved)
• St. Louis River: 24 over July (six cents improved)
CASH CORN
Cash prices were down sharply on the week. With the funds puking their long positions, we saw July corn plummet. While we saw some basis improvement, it wasn’t near enough of to keep prices stable. As I talked about last week, there’s no way to know if we catch anywhere in here and when the funds start selling, the oftentimes liquidate the whole position. I know many of you are heavily sold on old-crop, and our official recs posted on here are at 100% sold. However, some of you likely have a fair amount of corn left. Given the time of year we’re in, the only saving grace would be big Chinese purchases and/or a weather event. While I think China buys some corn eventually, using a weather issue as part of our marketing plan doesn’t work out often. Have that plan in place to be out of most, if not all of you old-crop by pollination and stay long with calls if you’re bullish.
2026 CORN
December 2026 corn ended the week at $4.46, down 29 on the week. The action in Dec corn was similar to old-corn. We were hoping Dec would hold support, but we plunged through and are now well below the 200-day moving average. In my situation, I’ve sold all the corn I want to for the time being. I won’t be selling more at these prices and will plan on storing corn IF we can’t get some sort of a weather scare. At the same time, I know many didn’t sell near as much as they wish they would have. This is where we go back to the drawing board and figure our break-evens using a yield that’s reasonable given your prospects. If it doesn’t work to sell in here, I’d be cautious as to get scared into selling much. It simply doesn’t make sense to sell at a loss when the whole summer weather situation is ahead of us. It all boils down to managing risk and locking in margins. Here is the link for more info on the AgMarket app. https://hubs.li/Q03qt2Qd0
Corn Market Theme: The corn market is in the toilet after another week of selling. Only make sales if they’re levels you can live with on new-corn and get your plan in place for old-corn as time could be short.
BEANS
Beans had been performing better than corn of late, but this week, they dropped like a rock. July beans settled at $11.21 ¼, down 8. This was 10 ¾ off the high and 4 off the low. Beans lost 65 ½ cents on the week. July meal settled down 21.3 on the week at 308.5, while soy oil ended the week at 74.12, down 3.60. The bean market, from a technical standpoint, looks much better. We still have the 100-day and 200-day well below the market as bean prices sit in the midst of the shorter-term moving averages. Part of what is keeping beans relatively strong is bean-oil, which posted a contract-high close on Friday. With the buildout of the crush industry, we have continued domestic demand growth, while the longer-term supply situation could be burdensome. Given fertilizer prices, the likelihood of more bean acres, not only in the US in the next 12 months seems a given. Therefore, some consideration of locking in the first small increment of ’27 beans might be given some consideration.
DEMAND
Soybean export sales were off a shade on the week at 276 kmt. Basis was steady:
• My local beans: 15 under July (a nickel improved)
• Decatur: 25 over July (no change)
• River: 26 over July (4 cents improved)
CASH BEANS
Cash beans moved quite a bit lower as well. With the big drop in board prices, the small basis improvements didn’t provide much help. On old-beans, I’ve understood someone wanting to keep gambling bushels around-but anything more than that has been problematic in my opinion. It’s not trying to outguess the market so much as knowing how much better the prices have been of late compared to the last couple of years. If you’re still holding onto some beans, they’re still worth a good chunk more than they were this past fall. Do your best to keep your perspective and hope you get a hot basis this summer.
2026 BEANS
Nov 2026 beans settled at $11.37 ½, down 52 ½ on the week. New beans had been resilient for some time, but this past week we really took a hit. It’s tough to know how prices react from here, but I am still cautious as to get bullish beans. I’m assuming we picked up some bean acres this spring due to fertilizer prices and excellent bean prices. We have excellent demand for beans here in the US, but we also have plenty of stocks globally. If China doesn’t step in and start their 25mmt buying program soon, the market likely stays cool. Given they bought the beans this past winter they promised, we have to understand those were at a $1 premium over Brazil. I think they buy the beans, so if you are unhappy with these prices, given our domestic demand is strong, I’d be careful as to sell beans if you’re currently below your break-even. On the flip-side, selling increments of beans above break-even is always wise in my opinion. Keep it simple and base additional sales on your farm’s profit margins-and let us know if we can help you figure all of this out.
Bean Market Theme: The bean market also got smoked this past week. Up until this past week, beans had been quite resilient. I’m not sure the selling is over just yet, so make sure your marketing plan is up-to-date.
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.