PM Comments April 10 2025
Good afternoon. Corn and soybean markets made it four for four this week on closes in the green Thursday, as each market once again managed to pull away from the selling in the outside world to extend their upside gains another day. The USDA's April WASDE added to the positive influence, but expectedly didn't offer a lot of shock to the space.
CK closed Thursday at 4.83, up 9 cents. CN was up 8 and 1/4 at 4.88 and 3/4. New highs for the move for both. SK closed at 10.29, up 16 and 1/4. SN was up 13 and 1/4 at 10.36 and 3/4. May closed its chart gap from the start of the month, but July and further months did not. WK closed at 5.38, down 4 and 1/4. Outside day lower for wheat. Products finished the day higher, May soybean meal closed at 297.90, up $3.40/ton, and May soybean oil closed at 46.32, up 13 points. Livestock markets closed lower, June live cattle ended at 195.20, down $3.17, May feeders closed at 275.30, down $2.90, and June hogs closed at 93.17, up $1.47. Inside day for the cattle markets. Outside markets have spent most of the day lower, crude oil futures are down $2.10-2.20/bbl, the Dow Jones index is down 900 points, but some 1,200 points off its lows, and the US$ index is down 170-200 points. New lows for the move in the $ index. The S&P500 is down 175 points and the NASDAQ is down 800 points; both are also well off the lows. Gold futures have not made new contract highs, but are up $90-110/oz after also finishing up nearly $90/oz on Wednesday.
Spreads closed Thursday mostly higher, with corn spreads up a half cent to up 6 and 1/2 cents, and soybean spreads up 1/4 of a cent to up 8 and 1/2 cents. CK/CN closed at -5 and 3/4, up 3/4 of a cent, and SK/SN closed at -7 and 3/4, up 3 cents. New highs for the move in both. Also new highs for the move in both the CN/CU and the SN/SU.
Like we mentioned at the top, the April WASDE report from the USDA was friendly to corn and beans on the margin, but once again didn't offer a lot of influence to either side of the market. Looking at corn first, old crop US ending stocks were lowered from 1.510 bil bu's to 1.465 bil on a 100 mil bu addition to exports and a 25 mil bu cut to feed and residual use; there were no changes to ethanol use, and there were also no changes to the average cash price, which held steady at $4.35. At the world level, ending stocks were lowered just slightly to 287.65 mmt's, though there were again no production estimate updates made in either Brazil or Argentina; the USDA continues to see Brazil corn at 126.0 mmt's and Argentina corn at 50.0 mmt's. Production in Ukraine was also left unchanged from last month, while Chinese imports were held steady at 8.0 mmt's.
The report was similarly quiet for soybeans, with the only balance sheet adjustments of note in the US being a 5 million bu addition to imports and a 10 million bu addition to crush, which produced a decline of 5 million bu's in ending stocks to 375 million bu. Exports were held steady on the month at 1.825 bil bu's, while the average farm price also held steady at $9.95. Looking at the world numbers, ending stocks were raised slightly to 122.5 mmt's, while Brazil and Argentina were again held steady at 169.0 and 49.0 mmt's respectively. Similar to corn, China's imports were also held steady at 109.0 mmt's, while EU imports were also left unchanged at 14.6 mmt's. In the products, meal ending stocks were unchanged even though production was raised by 350k tons, as there was a similar 300k ton increase in domestic consumption; for bean oil, exports were increased by 500 mil lbs and biofuel use was lowered by 200 mil lbs.
Lastly, data for wheat leaned slightly bearish as ending stocks in the US were increased for the second consecutive month to 846 mil bu's on a 10 mil bu increase in imports and also a 15 mil bu decrease in exports. World ending stocks also ticked up slightly to 260.7 mmt's; 0.5 mmt's of exports were shifted out of the EU and into Ukraine, while Russian exports were lowered by 1 mmt; Canada and Australia also traded 0.5 mmt's of exports. Most notable was another cut in Chinese imports, which were cut nearly in half to 3.5 mmt's.
Conab also released updated supply and demand information for Brazil this morning, though this data set also didn't provide a lot of spark on either side for traders. The group adjusted their soybean production figure for the current season to 167.87 mmt's, which was up slightly from last month, while also raising total corn production from 122.8 mmt's to 124.7 mmt's. Most of this increase was the result of increases in safrinha production, where estimates were raised from 95.5 mmt's to 97.9 mmt's. Of note, safrinha planted area also increased significantly, going from 16.75 million ha's in March to 16.9 mmt's this month. Circling back to the soybeans, also notable were regional production estimates, which showed southern state Rio Grande do Sul down 25% from last year, though top producer Mato Grosso more than offset this by being up more than 26% from last year.
On the tariff front, which remains an ever-changing situation, officials from the EU announced on Thursday a 90-day pause to its initial tariff response, which means 25% duties that were set to go into effect on April 15th will now be delayed. The move comes following a like 90-day pause announced by US President Trump yesterday, and is seen as a major positive for the Union's livestock sector, which relies heavily on imports of US corn. Otherwise, there wasn't a lot explicitly new to the situation on Thursday out of either the US or China, with it now largely being a waiting game to see how China responds to the latest tariff increases from Trump.
US weather forecasts were little changed on Thursday, and continue to offer light precip for the eastern Corn Belt into the weekend and first part of next week, while the rest of the Midwest and broader southwestern third of the country remains mostly dry. Week two forecasts trended slightly wetter in the central plains today, but amid model disagreement and significant run-to-run variations in the forecast, confidence in the output is not overly high. Temperature forecasts at mid-day stuck with yesterday's slightly cooler eastern US shift in the 5-10 day period, while the west is expected to remain well above average. The 10-15 day outlook still shows above average warmth throughout most of the country, but as is the case with extended precip outlooks, confidence in this solution is not great due to the changing forecasts in the intermediary period.
In South America, models see light rain potential through southern Argentina the rest of this week, while Brazil's growing regions will also see just spotty precip over the next three days. Beyond here though, there are better rain chances for both areas in the 5-10 day period, which should benefit safrinha corn but will likely be a hinderance to harvest activities in Argentina. Temperature forecasts continue to look similar to outlooks seen in recent weeks, with most of Brazil, especially the east, being average to above average, while most of Argentina will stay average to below average.