AG Squawk AM 8/17/2026 with Jed Sidwell | Corn Belt Flood Watch

We track a Midwest deluge colliding with Southern Plains drought and explain why that weather split can jolt grain futures overnight. We also check livestock prices, unpack record retail beef levels, and flag why Strait of Hormuz shipping headlines can spill into energy and farm input costs.
• early market snapshot for live cattle, feeder cattle, and lean hogs
• live quotes for corn, soybeans, and Chicago wheat
• flash flooding across key Corn Belt states and what it looks like on the ground
• drought in Oklahoma and Texas with limited near-term rain chances
• how weather uncertainty feeds overnight moves in grain futures
• retail beef at record prices and what could test demand
• Strait of Hormuz traffic slowdown and why to watch energy markets
• chart of the day on sports betting behavior and the risk of treating it like investing
• economic calendar with crop inspections and crop progress timings
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Good morning and welcome to Ag Squawk AM. Jed Sidwell here with Ag Bull Media. We're a financial channel that loves agriculture. Today we're going to talk about some of these

Welcome And Today’s Headlines

SPEAKER_00 0:23

rains that we have seen across the corn belt. Retail beef is starting to creep up there, and there's more drama out of the Strait of Hormuz. We'll get to all of that here in a bit. It could have been worse, though, because they rallied back a bit up towards the close. Live cattle were down $1.18 at $218.88. Feeder cattle were down

Cattle And Hog Market Check

SPEAKER_00 0:59

$2.65 at $3.34.5. Lean hogs were down above or $81 and 3 quarters down 38 cents. On to the live or the grain market for today. I'm using my quotes here live with my quotes from plus 500 T4 Trading Software. September corn is at 461.

Live Grain Quotes Snapshot

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Soybeans, September at 1183. Wheat, Chicago, same month, is at 669. On to our weather. Man, it has just been brutal here in the Midwest. We have not gotten a day without rain this past week. It has been just crazy. The sheer amount of moisture that we're seeing.

Flooding Midwest And Dry Southern Plains

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Spent a lot of time this weekend driving back and forth to Springfield, Illinois for the Illinois State Fair. And man, the just roadways and ditches and corners of fields are absolutely underwater. Our kind of report from Craig Solberger, in-house meteorologist, is that there was flash flooding across South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. A lot of big corn states there. And at the same time, there's in the mid-south and southern plains, there's just a ton of dryness in Oklahoma and Texas. And the next 15 days, there are areas that don't have any sign of precipitation in the future. So man, it's either you're above water or in desperate or you're below water or in desperate need of it. On to our grain market side, and we like to pop this up because we had an overnight rally last night, and I think this slide correlates with the one before it.

Weather Risk Shows Up In Grains

SPEAKER_00 2:40

This weather has absolutely been affecting the market. People are concerned that there's so much of it that's either underwater, or if you happen to live in western Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, places like that, then your corn crops looking probably a little bit tough with the lack of moisture that you've had. I know it is back home where I'm at in Colorado. We've started to run out of irrigation water out there. So it's really affecting these markets, and I think we're seeing it overnight, like we did this past night. On the livestock side of things, all fresh retail beef hit a record 975 a pound in July. That's up 10% year over year. The cool

Retail Beef Prices Hit Records

SPEAKER_00 3:22

thing is that beef demand assessments are likely to hold up unless there's kind of a slow in an employment growth or inflation outpacing wage increase. The consumer still has some purchasing power in this market, and there'll be those that'll argue with me, and I don't doubt that at all. But right now, it seems to be that people still have a demand for beef. Hopefully that holds into the future. This was the big headline that caught my news or caught my eye, kind of in the general market. The Straight of Horn Moose shipping grinds to a halt ahead of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire expiring

Strait Of Hormuz Shipping Stalls

SPEAKER_00 3:57

here in just a day or so. Really interesting to look at because the shape straight of four moves is now at an all-time new low on Saturday. Only five vessels passed through the strait on Saturday, and none on Sunday. Last week there were 31 vessels that went through the Strait of Four Moose. This is kind of balancing on that the fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran that is ex set to expire today, and there hasn't been much news of talks going on there. So make sure and watch the energy markets and stocks and things like that because this will have an effect there. The chart of the day, haven't done one of those in a while, so I popped this one up. It came through on our Nesvik newswire and it caught my eye.

Betting Is Not Investing

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Betting's not investing, folks. 36% don't participate, 23% kept separate money as quote unquote fun money. 15% use it to accelerate a goal, 14% occasionally redirect funds, and 11% just call it a high-risk investment strategy. Interesting to see. I know a lot of people I went to college and high school with are part of this trend. It's fun to place a parlay on the weekends and watch sports, and it's just something that you do. But man, if you do this every weekend through an NFL season, it starts to add up after a while. This is real money and real money that you can lose. And Vegas probably still holds the upper hand on a lot of these. And it's interesting to see how generations choose to spend their money different compared to others. Because I think the older generations look at sports betting still rather unfavorably. And the new generation is well, it's cool, it's legal, and it makes sports watching sports fun. It'll be interesting to see how some of these prediction markets change and adapt and develop as we work into the future. On the economic calendar for today, crop inspections come out at 10 a.m. Central. Crop progress comes out at 3. Make sure and follow us on our social media accounts. We're

Crop Reports And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_00 6:08

on every single one. X, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn. We're always putting stuff up. Weeks live stream this show and our evening show at 8 15 a.m. for the morning and 8 15 p.m. for the afternoon. So make sure and catch them there. That's all I have for you today on Ag Squawk AM. I'm really sending my uh thoughts and prayers out to the folks there in the southern parts of the United States that has just been seeing this drought. I'm sure that's just absolutely brutal right now. And we're our prayers

Closing Thoughts On The Drought

SPEAKER_00 6:43

go out to you with that. I'm Jed Sidwell with Ag Bull Media. We're a financial channel that loves agriculture. Have a great day.