PM Comments March 4 2025
Good afternoon. The grain markets remained is spasm mode today, with corn, beans, wheat, meal, and oil all hemorrhaging value again today.
Corn settled a dime off the lows from the session in what could be viewed as a sign a bottom may be developing. Trade throughout the day seemed to be two sided and futures moved from sharply lower to settle just shy of a nickel lower. Spreads traded sharply lower this morning but at one point turned positive before seeing the CK/CN settle just 1/4 cent lower to -7 3/4 and CN/CU just a half cent lower to +18 1/4. Fund selling has snowballed the past few trading sessions and driven the market sharply lower. The tariff related headlines yesterday and today helped pile on the downside. Any kind of fundamental news has been lost in the selling pressure as of late. Once the need to sell subsides - and we get past the spectacular move lower - we will get back to pricing the corn market. Hopefully we see this in the coming days.
Wheat appears to have gotten caught up in the strong corn selling. Wheat futures finished 9-13 lower. Futures have now given up all the gains from 2025, settling at a new low for the move. Once again - the market appeared to be overwhelmed by positioning.
Soybeans saw a similar pattern of trading much lower earlier in the session but recovered some of the losses by the end of the day. Beans still settled almost 15 cents lower, however. Futures are now firmly below the 100-day moving average which acted strong support throughout much of the year. The tariff retaliation from China will very likely impact the soybean market in one way or another. China is by far the largest importer of beans and the US has lost market share to Brazil in prior years so a protracted trade war could cause lasting damage to soybean exports.
Equity markets were volatile today and sold off on the close as it looked like maybe they could salvage some kind of positive momentum to end the day. Overall the major indexes finished 0.50 - 1.5% lower led by the DOW Jones off around -1.5%. The DOW has now lost more than 1,300 points in the past two days. The equity markets - like the ags - at this point are concerned about a protracted trade war.
On the weather front a blizzard warning goes into effect tonight at 9pm in Central Iowa through Southern Minnesota. Heavy wind gusts and blowing snow tomorrow morning is expected to produce blizzard conditions. The snow looks like it will leave as quick as it comes with temperatures rising later in the weekend and into next week.
Happy Fat Tuesday!