PM Comments March 24 2025
Good afternoon. Much like the way last week ended, markets at the board of trade started the new week quietly mixed, with corn and soybeans both closing within spitting distance of unchanged on Monday. Low volume unsurprisingly continued to be a factor throughout the day, with the May soybean contract failing to reach even the 80,000 mark and the May corn contract barely surpassing the 100,000 mark; this likely contributed to the small ranging price action seen after the morning open, and also to the choppy markets that ensued during the day.
CK closed Monday at 4.64 and 1/2, up 1/4 of a cent. CN was up a half cent at 4.72. SK finished at 10.07 and 1/4, down 2 and 1/2 cents. SN was down 2 at 10.19 and 1/2. WK closed at 5.48 and 1/4, down 10 cents. Products were mixed, May soybean meal closed at 297.60, down $2.70/ton, and May soybean oil closed at 42.15, up 14 points. Livestock markets were mixed to start the week, April live cattle closed Monday205.90, down $1.05, April feeders closed at 285.25, up 27 cents, and April hogs closed at 85.70, down 42 cents. Cattle markets gapped higher on the open this morning trying to get back some of Friday's losses, but quickly rolled back over and took out Friday's lows. Outside markets are trading mostly higher, crude oil futures are up 80-90 cents/bbl, the Dow Jones index is up 580 points, and the US$ index is up 10-20 points. The S&P500 is up 100 points, and the NASDAQ is up 400 points. Gold futures are quietly lower and are having an inside day. New highs for the move in both the $ and crude oil, while all three major stock index futures saw gap-higher opens to start trading last night.
Spreads were mixed/lower to start the week, corn spreads ended the day up 3/4 of a cent to down a half cent, and soybean spreads were unchanged to down a penny and a quarter. CK/CN closed at -7 and 1/2, down a quarter of a cent, and SK/SN closed at -12 and 1/4, down a half cent. New highs for the move for SK/SN at -11 and 1/4.
President Trump's new trade war was back in the spotlight on Monday ahead of next week's much anticipated reciprocal tariff day, with the US President announcing new 25% tariffs on any country that does oil business with Venezuela. Trump has recently accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of failing to do enough to tackle electoral reforms and migrant issues, with the new measures being a result. Sources say the tariffs are expected to go into effect on April 2nd along with the previously mentioned reciprocal tariffs. And to that end, Trump also made comments on the latter on Monday, indicating to reporters that the reciprocal measures may be more targeted in nature as opposed to wide-ranging and all encompassing. Stock index futures were already higher this morning, but saw more buying come in following those comments. This remains an evolving situation, and we will likely see several more headlines between now and next Wednesday that will cause market gyrations.
News specific to the ag space on Monday continued to be otherwise limited, and included weekly export inspection data for the week ending March 20th. The data showed wheat inspections in the week above trade expectations at 485k mt's, which aside from last week's figure, was the highest number of the last 6 weeks. Corn and soybean inspections both came in within trade expectations, with corn inspections in the week totaling 1.463 mil mt's and soybean inspections totaling 822k mt's. Not a lot to note on either figure, with the corn number being down slightly from last week but still being strong historically, and the soybean number being up slightly from last week but still being the result of shipping out mostly known Chinese business. The big question in the trade regarding soybean exports is what happens once the current Chinese business on the books is shipped and where additional business through the summer months might come from.
Weather forecasts coming out of the weekend for the Midwest are little changed from how they looked to end last week, and continue to feature frequent bouts of stormy weather for most of the eastern half of the US into the end of March and first of April. Upper air flow is keeping troughing present in the western US, which will allow storm systems to continue racing around the bottom side of this trough and then up through the mid-section of the country and across the Midwest, which keeps thunderstorm activity possible every 3-4 days. That situation is keeping precip maps fairly wet all the way into the week two period, though the southeast and areas along the Gulf did show signs of trending slightly drier at mid-day today. On the temperature side, the western US will see highs that are well above average through the week this week, with cooler air then seen creeping back in in the 5-10 and 10-15 day periods; warmth then shifts back east by the first week of April, with a bulk of the country again well warmer than average. Like we've mentioned previously, there will be intrusions of cooler air on and off as it is still only March, but overall, much of the country looks to continue to see air temps that are much warmer than average.
South of the Equator, models continue to be in fair agreement on continued wet weather for a bulk of both Brazil and Argentina over the next week, as forecasts were little changed coming out of the weekend also. In Argentina, the moisture certainly won't be bemoaned, but excessive rainfall could get burdensome should it occur for some areas as corn harvest has started and producers desire some dry days to get the combines rolling. In Brazil, producers will take every drop of moisture they can get for their recently planted safrinha corn crop, as delayed plantings raise the risk of rains shutting off in April/May before the crops are fully developed. This remains, to a large extent, one of the main reasons why managed money traders haven't further liquidated their net-long corn position.
We don't mean to be repetitive in these wires, but the fact remains that there simply isn't a lot of reason for the markets to move in either direction until more is known on the US spring acreage mix, the Trump administration's trade policy, or the final corn crop size in Brazil and Argentina. Stay aware of changing fundamentals based on these topics, and have a plan in place should a break from the current range occur in either direction.