PM Comments April 15 2025
Good afternoon. Ag markets had a little something for everybody on Tuesday, with corn spending most of the day trading both higher (new crop) and lower (old crop), beans trying to get above unchanged at mid-morning and then failing, and the wheat market staying in the red for pretty much the entirety of the day session. Bean oil also continued to stay active, and saw a pop from friendly stocks data via the NOPA crush report that was released earlier this morning.
CK closed Tuesday at 4.81 and 1/4, down 3 and 3/4. CN finished at 4.89 and 1/2, down 3 and 1/4. SK was down 5 and 3/4 at 10.36. SN closed at 10.46 and 1/2, down 3 and 3/4. Of note, both CZ and SX each closed higher. WK closed at 5.42, down 5 and 1/2 cents. Products were mixed, May soybean meal closed at 294.20, down $2.90/ton, and May soybean oil closed at 47.33, up 1.01 cents/lb. Outside day higher for bean oil. Livestock markets closed higher, June live cattle closed at 199.80, up 72 cents, May feeders closed at 282.52, up $1.57, and June hogs closed at 95.17, up just 5 cents. Outside markets are trading mixed, crude oil futures are down 10-20 cents/bbl, the Dow Jones index is down 200 points, and the US$ index is up 50-60 points; the S&P500 is down 10 points and the NASDAQ is up 10 points. Gold futures are up around $20/oz and have had an inside day. Also inside day for crude, the S&P and the NASDAQ.
Spreads were mostly lower on Tuesday, with corn spreads unchanged to 6 and 1/4 cents lower, and soybean spreads up a penny and 3/4 to down 7 cents. CK/CN closed at -8 and 1/4, down a half cent, and SK/SN closed at -10 and 1/2, down 2 cents.
USDA this morning announced daily corn sales for a second consecutive day, this time announcing that private exporters had sold 110,000 mt's to Portugal for delivery during the 2024/25 marketing year.
We'll start with the previously mentioned NOPA soybean crush report that was released earlier this morning; on the soybean side, the report wasn't overly friendly as data showed the March crush figure at just 194.551 mil bu, which was well below the average trade guess of 197.6 mil bu and also down nearly 1% from the same month last year. Analysts mentioned that this was the first report that included the Scoular crush plant in Goodland, Kansas, and also mentioned that other plants had slowed production in recent months due to shrinking crush margins and declining meal values. On the soybean oil side, stocks as of March 31st came in at a 10-year low for that date of 1.498 bil lbs, which was also below the average trade guess; the figure was down 0.3% from last month, which was the first monthly decline since last October, and was down more than 19% from March of last year.
Aside from this, it was more of the same news cycle that has become fairly commonplace in recent weeks of comments from Trump or his administration on trade, tariffs or wars, and then the combination of planting progress and weather. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt touched on several topics with reporters this afternoon, mentioning that Trump currently had more than 15 trade deals on the table that were under consideration, while also mentioning that she believed the administration would be able to announce some of them very soon. She added that, regarding the China situation, the ball is in their court according to Trump, and that we don't have to make a deal with them. Lastly on tariffs, Leavitt (and Trump separately in a post on Truth Social) said that relief was being considered for farmers in response to another trade war that looks to again proportionally affect them more than some other industries due to China's "targeting" of that sector of goods for retaliatory measures. Regarding Iran and the ongoing nuclear talks, Leavitt said that another meeting was scheduled for Saturday, but didn't give a lot of other detail.
US weather forecasts will likely continue to ebb and flow regarding exact precip amounts/locations from the coming low pressure system this weekend and into next week, but otherwise offer generally the same forecast at mid-day today as was seen on Monday. The wet areas in the mid-south and southern Midwest that saw flooding from heavy rainfall a couple weeks ago look to again be the hardest hit from this storm system, with models generally showing a corridor with a possibility at receiving 3-5" of rainfall over the next week. Beyond there, week two forecasts have also remained wet, and continue to see above average moisture potential throughout a large majority of the eastern 2/3's of the country, especially in the mid-south and areas near the Delta region. No update on the temperature outlook either, as most of the Midwest still expects to see a warm up after another couple days of cool-ish temps. 10-15 day outlooks into the end of the month also still show above average temps for nearly the whole the country, especially in the west.
There are still no threats in the forecast for South America in the short term, as rains are expected to fall over most of Brazil's growing regions in the next week, while just light precip is expected in pockets of southern Argentina. Heat also continues to not be much of a factor, with daytime highs registering just slightly above normal levels for the most part.