Grain Markets and Other Stuff
Joe Vaclavik and Mackenzie Johnston discuss the grain markets, the business of farming, news related to agriculture, and a variety of other topics.
Grain Markets and Other Stuff
Corn Drops Again + Trump Said WHAT About Soybeans??
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🌽 Corn and soybean futures continued lower Friday, with December corn settling at $4.46/bu and November beans near $11.38/bu — both at multi-month lows. A stronger dollar, Wall Street weakness, favorable weather, and a lack of Chinese buying all weighed on prices.
🌧️ Weekend rains provided solid coverage across much of the Corn Belt, with more widespread precipitation expected over the next 7 days. Temperatures will stay above normal near-term before cooling in the extended period.
🇺🇸 President Trump visited Wisconsin Friday to address farmer concerns over rising input costs and limited market access. He expressed confidence that export conditions and overall farm economics will improve within the next three months.
📊 The CFTC's Commitment of Traders report showed large money managers were heavy sellers across the grain complex for the week ending June 2. Funds have shed 225k corn contracts since early May, while also selling 28k beans and 38k SRW wheat contracts.
💣 US-Iran tensions escalated further Sunday as Iran launched missiles at Israel, marking its first direct strike since the early April ceasefire. Peace talks remain stalled over disputes surrounding frozen assets and broader regional conflicts.
🛢️ Oil prices have stayed surprisingly contained despite the Strait of Hormuz closure now entering its fourth month, removing over 10 million barrels per day from the global supply. Record US exports, weaker Chinese demand, and SPR releases have offset much of the shock—though the situation remains fragile.
🐛 A second New World screwworm case was confirmed in Texas Friday, just 5.6 miles from the initial detection near the US-Mexico border. Canada announced temporary import restrictions on livestock from affected regions, though cattle futures pushed higher on the week.
Grain Selloff Continues
SPEAKER_01Good morning, everybody. It's Monday, June 8th, 5 24 a.m. Central Time. Grain markets are mixed this morning. December corn futures down three quarters of a cent at 445 and a quarter. November soybeans down two at 11.35 and a half. July Chicago wheat up a half cent at 580 and a half. July Kansas City wheat up five and three quarters at 626 and a half. September spring wheat up two and three quarters at 648 and three quarters. It's Groundhog Day here on grain markets and other stuff. The grain markets got beat up again on Friday. Let's start there.
SPEAKER_00So the December 26th corn contract lost roughly six cents to close at 446 per bushel, its lowest level since mid-January. The November 26th soybean contract fell four cents to close near 1138 per bushel, its lowest level since mid-March. The declines were driven by a stronger dollar, a sell-off on Wall Street, and favorable weather forecasts. Additional pressure came from a continued lack of Chinese buying, weakness in corn and soybeans weight on wheat futures, which also ended the session lower.
SPEAKER_01This December corn chart has become incredibly ugly. That was the lowest trade for this contract since August of 2025 overnight. We traded below the January low, which was 445 and a quarter. U.S. weather, very clearly bearish. We'll look at some maps and some of that stuff here in a second. Uh fund liquidation, a lot of selling among large speculators. We'll talk about that here in a second. Stagnant but elevated crude oil prices. The whole trade associated with um the Middle East and the crude oil rally, it kind of lost its luster because crude just stalled. It went up to 95, 100 bucks, and uh we traded beyond that for a minute, and we've just been sitting here. And I think that it wasn't enough to uh to keep corn prices elevated. The weather, I think, is the big thing, and the fund liquidation is kind of like a domino effect type situation. We'll talk about that in a second. Um, this is a weekly continuation chart of corn that goes back to uh late 2023, and it had looked pretty good, and we've had uh uh three nasty weeks in a row now. So we fell below trend support. There's a gap on the weekly chart, and that gap is there probably because of a contract roll, uh rollover would be my guess. But 405 and a quarter uh in spot futures, there's there's a gap, and we're at 416 thereabouts this morning, so that's very much uh within reach, perhaps this week. Soybeans look better by comparison, but still not good. Maybe your next support is that March low near 1118 in the November contract. We've not seen China buy any new crop uh U.S. soybeans. We do have very strong U.S. crush margins, and that is something that could remain a little bit supportive. Uh HRW wheat got very close to filling that gap overnight, and then we bounced a little bit. Um, if you look at all three classes of exchange traded U.S. wheat, we kind of went down to some support levels on the charts overnight and then saw
Bearish Weather
SPEAKER_01just a little bit of a bounce. So maybe that's something to be optimistic about. But overall, yeah, this stuff is pretty ugly. Let's go to one of the reasons, which is weather.
SPEAKER_00Weekend rains hit several areas of the U.S. Corn Belt. The best coverage was seen in parts of southern Iowa, eastern Iowa, Missouri, the northern half of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. The forecast offers widespread rainfall for the vast majority of the U.S. Corn Belt over the next seven days. Temperatures are slated to remain above normal during the next several days, but are slated to cool down during the extended period. Given price action as of late, the trade clearly views recent and forthcoming rainfall as being bearish to the grade markets.
SPEAKER_01Very clearly. So, yeah, weekend rains um hitting a lot of places, certainly missed in some places as well. The radar is active this morning. We've got some rain over uh parts of eastern Iowa, parts of Missouri, a little bit of Nebraska, uh parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, parts of Minnesota, kind of scattered all over the place. The forecast is just wet. I mean, when you see a forecast like this on June 8th, and it's calling for rainfall essentially across the entire Corn Belt, with a couple of exceptions, like uh parts of South Dakota, Nebraska, and then southern Minnesota might be a little drier. You know, parts of call it northwest Iowa might be a little dry, but on the whole, vast majority of U.S. corn growing areas are slated to see some rain. That's not a guarantee. Weather forecasts can be wrong, of course. To quantify this, this is some great stuff again from our friends at Crop Profit. And guys, we're we're doing weather every single day because it's what matters the most this time of year. So if you're like, oh, I'm sick of seeing these same maps every day, we're gonna do it every day because this is what moves the markets in June and July. Our friends at Crop Profit estimate based on Euromodel data that U.S. corn areas will see 122% of their normal rainfall over the next seven days. And that trend continues in the eight to 14 day period, 113% of normal rainfall expected. Temperature is gonna stay a little elevated during the next uh several days. Corn areas are expected to be 4.1 degrees above normal on average over the next seven days, and then a big cool down during the eight to fourteen day period expected, uh below uh 3.2 degrees below normal, expected during the 8 to 14 day uh based on Euromodel data.
Trump in Wisconsin
SPEAKER_01So there's just there's absolutely nothing bullish about the forecast. It's it's an outright bearish forecast on June 8th, and uh that's part of the reason the markets have gotten beat up.
SPEAKER_00President Trump responded to farmer concerns during a stop in Wisconsin on Friday. Farmers highlighted rising input costs driven by consolidation within the ag industry, specifically among seed fertilizer and beefpacking companies. In response, Trump suggested relief may soon be on the way to help producers deal with elevated input costs. Farmers also stressed the need for expanded market access. While Trump highlighted recent gains in agricultural exports and said he expects conditions to further improve in the next three months. He also noted that China is purchasing billions of dollars worth of U.S. soybeans and other agricultural products. Throughout the visit, Trump repeatedly emphasized that the outlook for farmers should improve within the next three months.
SPEAKER_01Let's listen to a couple of the comments from the president in Wisconsin.
SPEAKER_02Perhaps most importantly, with our historic trade deals, I've dramatically expanded exports of American meat, poultry, soybeans, biofuels, and of course, Wisconsin dairy, the best.
SPEAKER_01I can't speak to all of that. Um I can speak to the soybean piece, Mackenzie. What do we know about U.S. meat or beef exports?
SPEAKER_00Uh so since uh in the in last year, 2024 through 2025, beef exports declined 11%. And through the first quarter of this year, beef exports are down 7%, and that is by value.
SPEAKER_01A lot of you guys voted for Trump because you love Trump. Some of you guys voted for Trump because you thought he was the best of the two options presented to you. Some of you guys absolutely hate Trump. I don't care who you voted for, but he's not telling the truth about beef exports. He's not telling the truth about soybean exports either. U.S. soybean export sales, uh, current marketing year, end of May totals. We are down 18% versus the same period last year. And that's largely due to reduced Chinese purchases, which are down 47% year over year. The trade war with China is why uh soybean export sales have been very soft. A lot of other global buyers stepped up and filled the gap to some extent, but we are still uh undoubtedly and factually lower than we were the same period last year. And um we don't know what's gonna happen with the with the quote unquote trade deal, the fact sheet that he's got out with regard to China, are they gonna buy those new crop bushels? Um, I don't know. I know that the farmers in Wisconsin, so they were they mentioned things like, hey, input costs are high, right? You know, fertilizer prices, fuel prices, it's in and just generalized input costs are elevated because of generalized inflation. I mean, they've got the right idea. I I can't help but wonder if if somebody, I know that none of the farmers probably got to like have a one-on-one with Trump, but you would think somebody would call them on this thing with soybeans and be like, wait a minute, wait a minute, you said what about soybeans?
Fund Liquidation
SPEAKER_01But I don't know. That's just uh that's probably not not how it works. So I wasn't uh necessarily thrilled with what I heard in that uh in that little speech.
SPEAKER_00The CFTC released its weekly commitment of traders report on Friday for the weekending Tuesday, June 2nd. Large money managers were net sellers of 91,000 corn contracts since the first week of May. The funds have sold off roughly 225,000 corn contracts. The funds were also net sellers of 28,000 soybean contracts and 38,000 SRW wheat contracts on the week.
SPEAKER_01So these numbers are accurate as of last Tuesday, and there was uh very clearly some additional fund liquidation in all likelihood after that. So in real time, large money managers or the funds could be they could be flat the corn market, they could be net long, like 50,000 contracts. It's somewhere in that range. Um, it's it's very tough to tell in real time. So a lot of the the liquidation event is over in corn. Now, you to look at this chart and premium subs, you guys have full versions of the fund tracker charts and also the uh daily fund tracker in your email this morning. But if you combine corn soybeans and SRW wheat, the net long peaked at 548,000 contracts in early May. And that was um very shy, just shy. Uh, I don't know if that's coincidental or not, of that peak from uh 2022. And 2022, you got to remember was Russia, Ukraine, it was inflation. There was a lot going on then. So uh the funds got really heavily long, and now they've sold 328,000 contracts from May 5th through June 2nd, and they've sold even more than that. Um, uh, if you're to believe the real-time estimates. So it's kind of like a selling begets selling situation. The way that the funds trade these days is all based in momentum, the way that it seems. Like they decided to pile on in one way, and we saw it during the the call it a rally in corn. I mean, it wasn't a hell of a rally, but it was it was a rally. Um they all piled in and now they're all piling out, I guess would be the way to put it. It's uh it's pretty ugly stuff. I will say with regard to corn prices, we're getting down. I probably should have said this in the corn market section, but you're getting down to prices here, especially in new crop, where farmer selling of new crop bushels is just gonna shut off. There's no profitability with these new crop insurance safety nets. You've got your ARCs, you got your PLCs, you got your top-ups. Um, the safety nets are fantastic. The farmer is going to find when he does his homework that he doesn't have a whole hell of a lot of a reason to uh sell new crop bushels into this thing at these sort of prices.
SPEAKER_00If you guys have not checked out our premium content, you sure need to do so. Joe, can you tell our viewers about some of last week's premium videos?
SPEAKER_01So, from where I sit, I hear grain marketing horror stories just about every day of the week. Um, this was an especially bad one that I decided I needed to cover in a video. I covered my corn hedges and I'm sick to my stomach. This is somebody who had some really good corn hedges on and he lifted, bought back his corn hedges before the big recent sell-off, and he's sick to his stomach about it, and I'm sick to my stomach for him. Um, I turned this into a video about basically the perils of making too many decisions and how which eat with each decision you make per bushel of grain that you market, the likelihood of you screwing up becomes higher and higher and higher. And um, the responses that I got from this were fantastic. I had like 25 people text me back and say, Joe, this is the best video you ever made. Okay, maybe it was, I don't know, but you guys should check it out. And it's not like like our job here, my job with the premium subs, like we put out grain marketing recommendations, but my job is is to try to teach you how to market rather than tell you where the market is going because I don't know where the market's going, but to tell you and explain to you some best practices. And this is one of the the big sticking points for me and has been for a long time with regard to marketing, it's just that too many decisions are it's it's it's not a good way to do things. Uh Ryan Moe is on Friday. We talked about uh rolling corn HTAs, new crop HTAs, which is looking interesting. Uh, basis and corn knockouts, the structured products, which are all over the country this year. There's a ton of them done. Uh, there's some interesting implications here the last few days with this big sell-off. If you want to see the premium stuff, go to standardgrain.com. You can sign up this morning. This is a $50 per month subscription. You can cancel at any time. There's no other fee, no other obligation, nobody to try to sell you anything else. If you're struggling with your grain marketing, um, the video that we did on Thursday about
Iran Update
SPEAKER_01too many decisions will uh help you to a significant degree and it will pay for your subscription for the rest of your farming career, would be my guess. Uh sign up this morning.
SPEAKER_00U.S. Iran tensions uh continue to escalate as peace talks remain stalled and with both sides exchanging new strikes despite the fragile ceasefire. Efforts to reach a peace, excuse me, uh the Trump administrative efforts to reach a peace deal have stalled amid disputes over Iran's frozen assets and a ceasefire deal between Israel and Lebanon. The Trump administration's proposal to use Iranian assets in the U.S. to assist Gulf allies in rebuilding from war damage could further complicate peace talks. On Friday, President Trump admitted that Iran still has about 21 to 22 percent of its missile arsenal. Tensions further escalated on Sunday after Iran launched missiles at Israel, marking its first direct missile attack since the ceasefire took effect in early April.
SPEAKER_01I understand the struggle to read the same story that we do every single day. Oh, we're oh, we've got escalation, we've got de-escalation. Nothing actually happened. Okay, crude oil is still at $94 this morning. It hasn't really gone a whole, it hasn't gone anywhere. I mean, the market's like not even trading this stuff anymore. It's we're just we're just sitting here waiting. Let's go to the next story, which was kind of an
Why Isn't Crude $200?
SPEAKER_01opinion piece, but I thought that this was uh very interesting and relevant, especially given a lot of the uh comments and emails I've been getting about crude oil.
SPEAKER_00Oil prices have remained surprisingly subdued despite the Strait of Hormuz being closed for more than three months, removing more than 10 million barrels per day from the Middle East. Many industry analysts initially labeled the closure as a worst-case scenario for global markets and expected oil prices to rise as high as $200 per barrel. Instead, unexpected buffers have kept the market in check, such as record U.S. exports, a sharp pullback in Chinese demand, and coordinated releases from strategic petroleum reserves. Additionally, some Gulf producers have used alternative export routes or continued to move crude through the strait despite heightened risks. However, uh, these workarounds are temporary and without a resolution or a meaningful supply recovery in the near future, small disruptions could trigger sharp price spikes.
SPEAKER_01So China is the world's largest crude importer and their imports have fallen drastically. They're not buying what or importing what they typically would. That's part of it. There is still some traffic through the strait, and that has also helped to keep prices down, uh, down relatively speaking, of course, versus the $200 that a lot of people have projected. But yeah, as McKenzie mentioned, make no make no mistake, if this thing continues long enough, crude's gonna have to go higher. It's just that I think based on what's going on in a lot of the markets, whether it be the stock market, the crude oil market, the treasury markets, global financial markets in general seem
Another Screwworm Case
SPEAKER_01to believe that this thing's gonna be over sooner rather than later, which which with every day it seems tougher to believe that. But that's that's what the markets are telling us.
SPEAKER_00A second New World Screwworm case was confirmed in Texas on Friday. The case was identified in a one-month-old calf located 5.6 miles from the initial detection reported last week, which is roughly 30 minutes from the U.S.-Mexico border. The USDA is conducting additional testing within the 12.4 mile quarantine zone. Also on Friday, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced temporary restrictions on livestock imports from affected U.S. regions. Canada imports minimal volumes of U.S. cattle, with the majority of those cattle originating from northern states such as Montana and North Dakota. So the restriction likely will have little to no impact on the cattle market. Despite last week's initial confirmed case, cattle futures responded positively, rallying sharply on Thursday and posting additional, albeit modest gains on Friday.
SPEAKER_01So I believe our thesis on Friday was that this was not a surprise that it ended up in the United States and that it was an inevitability. And that had been kind of your idea for a while, right?
SPEAKER_00For sure. We knew it was coming. There's plenty of other people that knew it would get here. It was baked into the cake, baked into the market, I guess you could say.
SPEAKER_01I had um somebody sent me a link, and I think it was breaking points. I was actually on breaking points one time. It was it's a great YouTube news show. But um, the breaking points, uh, one of the things they said was that this happened because of of doge cuts. And I was like, I don't know if that's really that's a stretch. The thing's transmitted through flies. Like, what what policy is going to be able to fix that, you know?
SPEAKER_00No, exactly. I mean, it we it was out of hand to start with, and it was just hard to get in front of. And like you said, it was flies. We're heading into summer. What do you expect? They're gonna they're gonna move.
SPEAKER_01So I don't know how any policy would would affect that. I mean for sure. No, you want to put a wall up for the flies? I mean, what are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_00Good luck with that.
SPEAKER_01I would have fly wall. Uh the SP is up 28 points this morning, but it got beat up pretty good on Friday. The SP was down 2.6% on Friday, and that was driven by a hotter than expected May jobs report. So good jobs report, but people think that that's gonna lead to a Fed rate hike. So that's why the market all the market cares about is is how much uh free money is going to be out there or cheap money is gonna be out there. Uh treasuries are off a little bit, crude oil's up three and a half bucks, about 94 even in the July WTI. Have a great week, guys. Back on Tuesday.