AM Comments April 28 2025
Good morning. Grain and soy markets are lower coming out of the weekend, with volume continuing to remain on the lower side as news stays mostly limited to China headlines. The weekend saw conflicting reports on just how much progress had been scored between the US and China on a trade deal, which we will touch on more below, but this has again produced selling in the ag space and would appear to indicate any sort of deal is not going to be reached quickly. Traders/farmers will also being paying attention to the weekly crop progress report from the USDA this afternoon, which amid favorable planting conditions across a good chunk of the Midwest, is expected to show a good week of progress over the last seven days. Otherwise, we would expect the sideways/choppy trading seen for most of the week last week to continue into this week, with the bottom line remaining that new fundamental input is needed on either the supply or the demand side to push values out of the current trading ranges. Corn futures to start Monday are trading 6-7 cents lower, soybean futures are trading 6-8 cents lower, and the Chicago wheat market is down 10-11 cents. Products are lower also, soybean meal is down around $1/ton, and soybean oil is down around 30 points. Outside markets are quiet/mixed to start the week, crude oil futures are down 20-30 cents/bbl, the Dow Jones index is down 30 points, and the US$ index is up 20 points; the S&P500 is down 10 points and the NASDAQ is down 20 points. Gold futures are up around $5/oz.
Today's Reports: Weekly Export Inspections; Weekly Crop Progress
- Friday afternoon's CFTC Commitment of Traders report showed as of Tuesday, April 22nd, managed traders are net-long 112,805 contracts of corn (-11,768 on the week), net-long 31,067 contracts of soybeans (+4,898), and net-short 89,929 contracts of Chicago wheat (+6,510). In soy products, funds are seen net-short 73,511 contracts of meal (-3,910) and are net-long 50,899 contracts of soybean oil (+9,939).
- Japanese news outlets over the weekend reported that the country was allegedly mulling increased imports of US corn and soybeans as part of a deal with President Trump. Sources said the increases were possible due to Japan's limited ability to increase domestic production, and also added that the government was considering a similar move for rice imports. Japan's tariff negotiator is expected in Washington on Wednesday to continue talks.
- According to private European ag consultancy Strategie Grains, EU oilseed output in the coming season is expected to increase vs last year across all three of its major crops; rapeseed production, which is the bloc's main oilseed crop, is expected to be up more than 10% from last year at 19.0 mmt's, while sunseed production is expected to increase by more than 25% to 10.5 mmt's, and soybean production is seen increasing roughly 3% to 3.1 mmt's.
- Federally inspected beef production in the US in the week ending April 26th was seen at 486 mil lbs according to the USDA, which is down 4% from last week; pork production in the week was seen at 528 mil lbs, up 3% on the week. For the year, total beef production is down 2.1% and pork production is down 2.4%.
- Lastly from the USDA, the group's monthly poultry slaughter report, which was released Friday afternoon, showed total US poultry slaughter in March at 5.57 bil lbs, which was up 3% from March of last year; that brings cumulative slaughter through the first three months of 2025 to 16.96 bil lbs, which is down just 0.1% from last year.
- Preliminary results from Canada's election are expected to start trickling out to the public around the 7pm eastern hour tonight, with weekend polls showing Liberal Party leader Mark Carney holding a slim two-point lead over his Conservative counterpart, Pierre Poilievre; this compares to a five-point advantage just a week ago, as the public has been torn on whether to back the man most likely to win a trade war with Trump or the one more likely to improve living standards and lower costs.
- Otherwise, financial markets will see a whole host of inputs this week, with four of the Magnificent Seven expected to give earnings updates over the next five days, while the trade will also see fresh monthly jobs data, as well as GDP estimates and a PCE update on Wednesday.
- In other news for Monday, US Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins is scheduled to make appearances at a couple locations in Versailles, Ohio, with Governor Mike DeWine; the two are expected to hold sessions for media availability at both locations this afternoon.
- Midwest precip according to satellite data over the last 72 hours was rather hit-or-miss, with the best coverage again being through the already wet areas of the mid-south and southern Midwest; most of SD also picked up good precip, but NE, ND, MN, and IA were all mostly missed as far as other areas in the northwest go. Heaviest amounts were in the south, where N TX and parts of SW OK picked up 2.5-3"; totals to the east were generally a lesser 0.1-1".
- However, forecasts for this week do show improved rains for these northwestern states, with the EU model this morning seeing the chances for 1-2" of rain through the Dakota's and into MN between now and tomorrow morning, while more rains are then seen further to the south through TX/OK/KS/MO the back half of the week and into the weekend. The GFS is still the drier of the two models, but has also continued to preform worse of late than the EU model.
- Looking out further, week two precip maps show a drier bias for the eastern half of the US and northeast, as high pressure ridging significantly lessens the odds at precip in the May 6th-May 12th period. This ridging also allows to temps to stay well above normal here, which is evidenced in the 10-15 day temperature outlook from the both the EU and the GFS, as well as the EU AI model. Also on the temp front, the southwest and western US expect to see pockets of cooler air this week and into next, which is a new forecast development that was not seen the end of last week.