AM Comments June 9 2025
Good morning. Ag markets at the CBOT have spent the overnight session trading mostly mixed in light volume to start the new week of trading this week, as most participants are already in 'wait and see' mode early Monday morning due to a weekend announcement that trade delegations from the US and China would be meeting in London later today. As we've mentioned previously, there is simply nobody interested in being caught the wrong way should some sort of trade deal be struck between the two sides, though at the same time, there is also considerable risk in positioning for an opposite scenario, as a deal is certainly far from a guarantee. Such a situation, mixed with improving US crop conditions and a continued favorable forecast for the most part in the short term, will likely again produce rather choppy trading this week, with sideways being our best guess as to overall market direction. Corn futures to start Monday morning are 1-5 cents lower, soybean futures are trading either side of unchanged, and the Chicago wheat market is down 3-5 cents. Products are quiet/mixed, soybean meal is down around 50 cents/ton, and soybean oil is up 20-30 points. Outside markets are similarly mixed/quiet, crude oil futures are up 30-40 cents/bbl, the Dow Jones index is up 60 points, and the US$ index is down 20 points; the S&P500 is up 10 points and the NASDAQ is up 25 points.
Today's Reports: Weekly Export Inspections; Weekly Crop Progress
- CFTC Commitment of Traders data from Friday afternoon showed fund traders in the week ending June 3rd being sellers of 53,283 contracts of corn (now net-short 154,043), sellers of 28,096 contracts of soybeans (net-long 8,601), and buyers of 654 contracts of Chicago wheat (net-short 100,572). In soy products, funds were sellers of 2,932 contracts of meal (net-short 96,717) and sellers of 21,998 contracts of oil (net-long 31,990).
- Also of note out of the CFTC data, in the livestock markets, funds currently have the largest net-long hog position they've ever had at the start of June (101,626 contracts), while they also during the week set a new record net-long position in feeder cattle futures at 34,827 contracts.
- Like we mentioned briefly at the top, main headline news for Monday coming out of the weekend is the scheduled meeting between a US trade team of Treasury Secretary Bessent, Commerce Secretary Lutnick, and Trade Representative Greer, with a Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier He Lifeng in London later today. The Chinese team will also be meeting with British officials to discuss trade later this week, but sources familiar have said the UK will not have a presence at the talks between China and the US.
- Staying on the topic, the tariff war is clearly having a noted impact on trade between the two countries, with China's most recent customs data for the month of May showing total exports to the US of all goods down nearly 35% from the same month last year. Imports from the US also fell sharply, declining nearly 20% from the month prior.
- The data also showed Chinese soybean imports in May making a significant rebound from previous months, as Brazil's delayed harvest finally made it to port, and subsequently made it across the Pacific; data shows total soybean imports in the month at 13.92 mmt's, which was a new record for any month and up nearly 130% from the total seen in April. Total imports in 2025 are down just under 1% from last year at 37.108 mmt's.
- In other trade-related news, sources familiar said that talks between the US and India that had been ongoing last week in New Delhi were extended past their original deadline and will now continue into this week as the two sides look to make further progress on an interim trade deal ahead of Trump's broader July 9th reciprocal tariff deadline. President Trump and Indian PM Narendra Modi in February agreed to work towards a bilateral trade deal by this fall, with a goal of doubling trade between the two by 2030.
- Authorities from the state of MO are investigating what is being described as a fake press release regarding the livestock screwworm pest that has been in the news recently, which officials think could have possibly contributed to a sell-off in cattle futures a couple weeks ago. The MO Dept of Ag, as well as other agencies, are investigating the situation to determine whether the article was intended to cause panic in the markets, but there are little other details available at this time.
- Russia over the weekend launched its largest drone attack of the war on Ukraine, but officials from the US say the attack likely wasn't the retaliatory strike talked about between Putin and Trump last week, or at least not all of it. Sources say the response is likely to be multi-faceted, and include several different types of weaponry including drones and missiles. Said one source though, "In general, Russia's ability to substantially escalate strikes from what they are already doing - and attempting to do - is quite constrained."
- Satellite-based rainfall data from over the weekend showed continued wet weather across the southern Corn Belt, with areas from KS across to the Virginia's and then south picking up anywhere from a couple tenths to 3" of precip. Totals were less farther north, with the Dakota's/MN/WI seeing just scattered precip of 1-3 tenths.
- For this week, the EU forecast is calling for mostly continued cooler temps across the Midwest, while precip will be mostly absent the first half of the week through Wednesday. Then the back of the week, the forecast is showing rain chances through the north-central Corn Belt Thursday/Friday, though the central Corn Belt looks to remain dry. Rains are also expected to continue falling in the south/southeast this week, with an additional 1-5" of rain forecast for east-central TX, and a lesser 1-3" of rain seen then further east along the Gulf Coast.
- In the extended forecast, week two precip maps are in decent agreement on continued above average moisture potential in the eastern US, while the west looks to hold in a mostly drier pattern. On the temperature side, both the 5-10 and 10-15 day outlooks show the eastern US warming up a bit into the end of June, but the bulk of the heat looks to continue being focused on the western third of the country.