March 25th Grain Marketing Update

Good Morning!

I hope your week is going well so far. While we thought we might have a chance to plant some beans, we received a couple of tenths of an inch of rain on Sunday, followed by cold temperatures. With a 90% chance of rain on Wednesday into Thursday, we’ll sit and wait to see what this next front brings before we get too active. A handful of beans have been planted in the area, with some groundwork and anhydrous going on. The last three weeks we’ve been blessed with plenty of rain, but our tiles aren’t running much at all. Given how dry we were coming in, there’s no doubt we’ll need plenty of follow-up moisture as the growing season goes on. I’ll keep you posted on our progress, and if you get a chance, do the same for us. For more information on AgMarket, click here. https://hubs.li/Q03qt2Qd0

The markets were mixed on Monday and Tuesday, with a more muted tone than last week. With the war drum quieting down for now, we started in a risk-off mode regarding oil on Monday. Outside markets should have provided a positive bias.

• The US Dollar settled up .517 at 99.242
• May crude oil settled up 4.22 at 92.35
• The DOW settled down 107 points at 46,415

CORN
The corn market started the week losing some ground, then tried to claw back on Tuesday. May corn closed up 3 at $4.62 ½. This was 3 ¼ off the high and 3 ½ off the low. Corn export inspections were above expectations at 1.700 mmt. This was more than a week ago and a shade under expectations. These corn shipments are still running about 40% ahead of last year’s pace, while the USDA is forecasting a 14% increase. So, we’re definitely running well ahead of the pace needed to meet the USDA goal. Corn demand has no doubt been excellent, and hopefully, we’ll see a decline at a strong level on the quarterly stocks report next Tuesday. The other part of the report is, of course, the acreage-our official estimate at AgMarket is 94.4. Given how strong acreage was a year ago, our expectation is for big corn acres, but for them to be a bit lower than what we saw last year. With a historic difference in acres of 18 million, our group expects that gap to narrow. Regardless, expect major volatility when those numbers get released. December 2026 corn settled 2 ½ higher at $4.89.

SOYBEANS
Soybeans were a shade higher on Monday but lost those gains and then some on Tuesday. May beans were down 8 ½ at $11.55. This was 11 ¾ off the high and 1 ¼ off the low. May soybean meal was down 4.2 at 322.4, while soy oil was up 0.15 at 65.73. Weekly inspections showed bean shipments at 1.102 mmt, which was above expectations again and up by over 100k from a week ago. This bean market continues to follow around the products to an extent. With pressure on bean meal, it likely caused some pressure for beans. While some excitement revolves around the 45Z and renewable fuels standards coming soon, it’s tough to get around the huge crop out of South America. Fundamentally, it’s tough to expect a rally, but as with corn, we’re seeing funds want to own these ag commodities. So, it’s possible we could rally in the face of bearish fundamentals if the funds want to own beans. Our estimate for bean acres on Tuesday is 86.1 million acres, which would make the combination of corn and bean acres a record if we’re correct in our thoughts. The reason we’re so strong on acres is the drop in rice, cotton, and wheat acres the industry expects likely boosts the two main crops. November beans settled at $11.43 ¾, down 2 ¾ on Tuesday.

Matt Bennett
mbennett@agmarket.net
815-665-0462
@chief321