Jul 01 | Closing Market Report

Todd Gleason: 00:00

From the land to Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois. This is the closing market report. It is the July 2025. I'm extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets.

Todd Gleason: 00:12

Nealee Bloom from totalfarmmarketing.com out of West Bend, Wisconsin. We'll get an update of crop progress across The US from the state statisticians. I'll bring that to you. And then we'll turn our attention to the latest USDA hogs and pigs report. Breeding herd is down.

Todd Gleason: 00:33

It's the lowest in a decade. We'll learn more about that. And as we wrap up our time together, we'll take a look at the weather forecast with Donde from Day Weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and hear an interview that a colleague of mine did with Michael Cordonier of soybean and corn adviser about the size of the safrinha or second corn crop in Brazil, all on this Tuesday edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.rg. July corn for the day settled at $4.20.

Todd Gleason: 01:12

It was down a half. December at $4.22, three and a half lower. July beans at $10.24 and 3 quarters, a half higher. November at $10.27 at a quarter, up a quarter of a cent. Bean meal futures, $2.10 lower than bean oil, a dollar 25 higher.

Todd Gleason: 01:27

Soft red winter wheat for the day at five thirty seven at a quarter, up 8 and a half cents for the July, the hard red July at five ten and three quarters, it finished four and three quarters of a cent higher. Live cattle down $3.12 and a half cents. Naomi Blohm from totalfarmmarketing.com now is joining us to take a look at the marketplace. Hi, Naomi. Thank you for being with us.

Todd Gleason: 01:50

I know reports come and go fairly quickly. Yesterday, we had two of them. The acreage figures were released, by USDA along with the grain stocks numbers. Can you give me your quick assessment of those and then how the trade has managed them over the last twenty four hours.

Naomi Blohm: 02:06

That report yesterday was actually one of the most muted reports that we've had for June 30 acres and quarterly stocks. Usually, after those reports, there's some surprise in either the acre side or the stock side, and we just didn't get that yesterday. So corn acres at 95.2, down about 120,000 from March, a little bit below expectations. Then on the soybean side, planted acres came in at 83.38 and that was down about 115,000 from March and a little bit below expectations. So no big changes from the March report really.

Naomi Blohm: 02:45

Then on the quarterly stock side of it, everything was most in line with expectations. So without any big fresh fundamental news to trade on, grain markets just kind of were lackluster for a good half hour after the market, report came out and then kinda just finished a little lower for, the corn and beans. So today's action feels a little bit more like position squaring into the holiday weekend. We had news that, the big beautiful bill made it through the Senate, so now it's onto its next path of progress. And we're keeping an eye, of course, on the weather.

Naomi Blohm: 03:23

And overall, things still looking pretty darn good for the crop. And I think that was echoed in yesterday's crop progress report that came out with, the corn now 73% good to excellent. That was up three points from last week, and the beans coming in at 66 good to excellent unchanged from the week prior. So not a lot of fresh news, and the markets are kind of showing that with their quiet market sentiment.

Todd Gleason: 03:51

And with hindsight, we as you look back at last week's trade from the Friday before and the drop in corn particularly, but corn and soybeans both, Was there something in that set that you now see, that wasn't visible at that time? Were the was the outside markets doing something? Was it potentially the size of the South American corn crop, particularly out of Brazil? Was it just the weather here, a combination? All of them, something I missed altogether.

Naomi Blohm: 04:21

Oh, I think you summed it up pretty well. You know, getting that news last week for corn that the Brazil crop might even be even larger than USDA numbers, That weighed on the market seasonally. That, June 20 time frame is a lot of times the last hurrah for any kind of market rally, and so we didn't get any fresh news. With the weather looking good enough, it was just enough for traders to say, well, let's take prices lower because we don't have any reason to take it higher. So we saw technical selling and just that sentiment that it's gonna be a big enough crop here to get us through and that the Brazil crop was gonna be sizable, that just weighed on things, overall.

Todd Gleason: 05:08

Are you fearful without some kind of weather development here that, a later harvest will manage to push, corn futures lower longer, than maybe they might have in in some other case. For instance, just because, well, suddenly we knew that it was such a big crop. Sometimes that drops the market like it did, but then it can bounce back. But maybe not this time around. I wonder.

Naomi Blohm: 05:34

Yeah. I was kinda wondering that too because, last year we had the harvest low come at the August, and then we had that fast harvest. But this year, it might be something where traders are just, apathetic and just not really interested in what might get the market to work higher. So, it could be something where we see the market work lower into August, barring a weather surprise or some kind of a trade deal surprise, but we see it work lower, maybe have a little recovery bounce, but then just kind of sizzle back down lower. I feel like farmers this year will store as much as they can, so that might just kind of keep the market a little bit lower in general.

Naomi Blohm: 06:15

I was looking also back at years just to remind myself what the seasonal tendency can be for corn prices. Does it always bottom at the August and then just go straight up like it did last year? And the answer, of course, is no. There does seem to be some nuanced truth to the market finding a low around Labor Day and then a little recovery bounce. But, sometimes that recovery bounce leads to another push lower into almost like a second harvest low.

Naomi Blohm: 06:43

So that's something to be aware of. We're gonna really need some fresh demand news or some kind of a surprise on our yield side as summer goes on or potentially we're going to have to start seeing some kind of a weather issue begin to develop for South America for their growing season, which will get started next October, November when they're planting. So, you know, it's frustrating when I don't have anything really exciting and positive to tell farmers and to share about the markets, but it just kinda might be one of those years.

Todd Gleason: 07:18

How should producers now approach the fall, particularly new crop corn that must go across the elevator scale?

Naomi Blohm: 07:24

Well, I think have a skeptic tone in your thinking. Skeptic meaning, is it really possible that we're going get China to come in and do a big trade negotiation? My thought, and I've shared this on this program before, is that they might come in, but they're going to wait till the harvest low before they come in and sign anything because they're going to want to buy it as cheap as they can. Just to know that if we're in this mindset that global production or US production is viewed as good enough and there's not a threat as far as weather goes, that we might be going back into a slump of lower prices. So, you're going to have to go back to, some of those marketing tools that worked in the years where we had, lower prices and higher production levels, you know, learning how to use carry in the market to your advantage, being mindful potentially of, option strategies where you're selling calls and challenging the market to rally.

Naomi Blohm: 08:23

It's a risky scenario, so you need to understand how that works. But you have to be ready to look at picking up nickels and dimes instead of those big, beautiful, long 50¢ price moves or dollar moves that we had when we were dealing with tight production numbers and the newness of the Ukraine Russia war. Things are a little bit different now under this administration.

Todd Gleason: 08:48

Thank you much.

Naomi Blohm: 08:49

Thank you.

Todd Gleason: 08:49

That's Naomi Bloem. She is with totalfarmmarketing.com. Yesterday afternoon, the United States Department of Agriculture released the weekly crop progress report. It shows 8% of the corn crop around the nation has silked, 6% is the rolling five year average. The condition of the crop is said to be 73% good to excellent, breaking out the top five states plus Indiana, Illinois 71%, Indiana 62%, Iowa at 85%, Minnesota 74%, Nebraska 77%, and South Dakota, the number five corn producing in the nation is 70% good to excellent for its crop.

Todd Gleason: 09:37

17% of the soybeans around the nation have bloomed now. 16% is the rolling five year average, and 3% of the crop has set pods. 2% is the five year average. Iowa running ahead it's at 4% setting pods now for its soybeans. 1% is the rolling five year average there.

Todd Gleason: 09:58

Missouri too at 1%. Usually there are no soybean setting pods in that state at this time of the year. The good to excellent categories combined across the nation for soybeans round out at 66% with the top five plus Indiana at 54% for Illinois. Indiana 61% good excellent, Iowa 77%, Minnesota 73%, Missouri 72%, and North Dakota at 57% good to excellent. Of the state we follow, only Iowa, now since the Doge cuts, releases a statewide weekly crop progress report.

Todd Gleason: 10:39

You can find it on their website. Look for crop progress, Comma, Iowa. Well, the latest USDA hogs and pigs report showed a herd of 75,100,000 head in The United States. That's as of June. That's up one half of a percent and just above what the trade had expected.

Todd Gleason: 11:10

Meanwhile, the breeding herd is the smallest in a decade, says University of Missouri's Jason Franken.

Jason Franken: 11:15

It just matches the breeding herd in February, and you have to go back another year to find a smaller one.

Todd Gleason: 11:21

The market hog inventories, except for the heaviest category, are up compared to last year. The year over year increase in lighter weight hogs reflects a similar increase in the March through May pig crop too.

Jason Franken: 11:33

The latter results from another record 11.75 pigs per litter for the period, pushing one and three quarters percent higher than a year ago, more than offsetting the less than a half a percent reduction to farrowings. Such productivity growth should be expected to continue given that annual growth in pigs per litter has averaged over 1% since 1994 and eight other countries attain greater than 13 pigs per litter.

Todd Gleason: 11:56

On the demand side, USDA forecast US per capita pork consumption at about 50.3 pounds per person in 2025 rising to 50.8 in 2026. This small increase reflects continuing concerns over consumer purchasing powers in the face of inflation. The bigger issue is international demand for US pork.

Jason Franken: 12:18

The US exported 583,000,000 pounds of pork in April or about 11% less than in February, possibly attributable to uncertainty regarding tariffs and terms of trade. Mexico, Japan, and South Korea were top buyers respectively accounting for 35%, 16%, and 13% of shipments, representing 17%, 14%, and 8% declines from a year ago, while Canada cut imports of US pork by a third.

Todd Gleason: 12:45

Competitors, writes Franken on the University of Illinois FarmDoc Daily website, are gaining in key Asian markets. He says while The US share of Japan's imports of pork decreased 4% for the period, Brazil's share rose 6%. Accordingly, the USDA reduced forecast second quarter pork exports by about 4%, the third and fourth quarters of the year were trending lower too. However, USDA is forecasting things to look better next year.

Jason Franken: 13:11

In 02/1926, US pork exports are forecast to start fractionally lower in the first quarter, but rebound throughout the remainder of the year to almost 1% above 02/2025.

Todd Gleason: 13:21

The Missouri ag economist expects the price of hogs to average about $98 in the third quarter of this calendar year and then to decrease by less than about 15% going into the first three months of twenty twenty six. Spring prices, he thinks, should rebound to around $90, a hundredweight. From time to time, we talk with Michael Cordonier from Soybean and Corn Advisor. He often makes trips into South America, Brazil, and Argentina both. I did not talk with him, but a colleague of mine at the National Association of Farm Broadcasting, Rob Winters at WOW, that's BOWO, out of Fort Wayne, Indiana did recently, and he sent me some of the audio.

Todd Gleason: 14:16

Started by asking Cordonier about the size of that second crop or safrinha corn in Brazil.

Michael Cordonnier: 14:24

Absolutely right. Usually, the rain tapers off early May, but this year, the rainfall in April and May was quite heavy, very beneficial. In fact, it's still raining in the state of Pannana, a little bit further south. Good for yield, of course, slows down the harvest a little bit. Now it is gonna be very big taffini corn crop, 130,000,000 tons or more.

Michael Cordonnier: 14:47

I've been reading my estimate every couple of weeks. And the harvest is just barely getting started, maybe 10%. And many states are anticipating record yields for the saphenia corn. There's only been a few little problems down in the southern locations, the Southern Mato Grosso and Panana, and it's still raining there. Now one of the reasons a very slow harvesting, last year was 21% harvested.

Michael Cordonnier: 15:11

The seed moisture is very high. It hasn't dried off very much. And first of they don't have much on farm storage, much less drying capacity. So they'd rather have a dry down in the field instead of paying, you know, at the coop or the grain elevator to dry it down. Normally, this time of the year, mid June, it's bone dry, but not this year.

Michael Cordonnier: 15:32

They keep getting rain, delaying the harvest. Para Napa, for example, less than 1% harvested. It's not like nonstop rain. It's just too rainy to have the seed moisture drop down to what they want.

Todd Gleason: 15:43

Again, that's Michael Cordonier of Soybean and Corn Advisor. He was asked about the size of this crop and the yield of the corn crop in Brazil, which is just 95 bushels, but it is an enormous yield for that South American country.

Michael Cordonnier: 16:00

Well, you gotta remember that the farmers in Brazil live and die by soybeans. This second crop of corn is just icing on the cake. If you get your soybeans harvested all the time and get the stuff in your corn planted, you don't save the farm by the corn crop. So this is just a real bonus to have that much yield, and that yield keeps going up. But the seed companies saw the potential that they developed very short maturing hybrids suitable for Central Brazil, and now it keeps going up.

Michael Cordonnier: 16:29

So, yeah, 95 bushel corn isn't much to brag about, but it's coming after 70 bushel soybean. So that's what makes the big difference.

Todd Gleason: 16:37

Despite this bumper, safrinha corn crop out of Brazil, USDA is expecting that they will not export nearly as much corn as they have in the past. There are some reasons for that, says Cordoniere.

Michael Cordonnier: 16:52

Right now, about 20% of the ethanol in Brazil comes from corn. And they're building plants as fast as they can, and they're gonna use about 20,000,000 tons of corn to make ethanol, up from zero about seven, eight years ago. The ethanol production using corn isn't going up faster than the corn production is going up. Next year, they think it's gonna be very, very profitable. So it's just gonna keep getting bigger and bigger.

Michael Cordonnier: 17:18

So ethanol is the reason why exports may not be quite as much as what you expect with a record crop.

Todd Gleason: 17:23

So ethanol production, particularly from plants being developed in Mato Grosso, that's the largest soybean producing state in the nation and one of the largest corn producing states as well. And then, of course, there is the livestock sector, which is primarily in the Southern part of Brazil.

Michael Cordonnier: 17:39

Brazil is the largest poultry exporter in the world. The poultry and the hog are located in Southern Brazil, and they're always at a corn deficit in that southern part of the country. So the corn that's produced up in Central Brazil, a lot of it has moved down to the livestock sector. And, of course, with all the ethanol plants, you get DDGs, so they're also being moved down to Southern Brazil and exported as well. I just wrote a story.

Michael Cordonnier: 18:03

The only railroad in Mato Grosso just gets into the Southeast corner of the state, but they are now building an extension that also is gonna get up into the central part of the state, which is the heart of soybean production. So within maybe five years or so, they will have a railroad going straight from the heart of Mato Grosso to the Port Of Santos, which is the largest port in Latin America. They're slowly working on the infrastructure.

Todd Gleason: 18:27

Infrastructure, which will continue to provide support for key demand sectors like livestock and ethanol production inside Brazil and, of course, to the export market as well. And that's an issue for US farmers, says Cordonier.

Michael Cordonnier: 18:44

As of a couple of weeks ago, China, they don't have any orders on the books for new crop corn or soybeans from The United States, which is the first time it's ever happened. Well, who's gonna take those orders? It's Brazil. Also, DDGs from Brazil to China for the first time ever. And and president Lula from Brazil was just in China signing more agreements with Xi.

Michael Cordonnier: 19:05

So the joint at the hip gets bigger and bigger all the time. China, for their part, they're going to Brazil, and they are building port facilities and export terminals. They wanna bypass the middlemen, argyll, fungi, and ADM. They wanna buy straight from the farmer, ship it to their own port facilities, and ship it to China. So it's a win win for both Brazil and China.

Todd Gleason: 19:27

Michael Cordonier from soybean and Corn Advisor courtesy of Rob Winters at WoWo, w o w o, out of Fort Wayne, Indiana. The theme music for the closing market report is written, performed, produced in courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer Tim Gleason. Do visit our website. The address there is willag.org, willag.0rg. Up next, we'll hear from Dundee.

Todd Gleason: 20:00

He's a day weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Don Day: 20:03

As we look ahead over the next seven to ten days, we see a similar pattern. We're gonna continue to have that ring of fire moisture in the Northern and Western Corn Belt areas. More rain from the Texas, Oklahoma, Panhandle regions through Kansas, through Nebraska, through a large part of Iowa, Northern Missouri, and into the Dakotas, and a good chunk of Wisconsin and Minnesota gonna be getting more rain. However, with the high pressure system centered over the middle part of the nation, we're gonna see warmer, drier conditions for the Central and Eastern and Southern Corn Belt areas where temperatures will be warmer and precipitation chances will be less.

Todd Gleason: 20:43

Donde is with day weather out of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Let's put some of what he said into perspective across the Corn Belt. We'll start in Nebraska where they'll have temperatures in the mid eighties for this week. Over the last seven days, they have had somewhere between one and nearly five inches of rain that 4.85 inches of rain came in Grand Island, Nebraska. Over the next seven days, they'll get between an inch and an inch and a half, you know, about the same thing in the Dakotas.

Todd Gleason: 21:13

A little less rainfall between two and four inches in the places that I track. They'll get a bit more, as much as two inches of rainfall over the next seven days, and they'll have temperatures in the upper seventies to low eighties. And then starting in the northern part of the Corn Belt in Minnesota, temperatures over the next week will max out around 80 degrees. Albert Lee last week saw nearly three and a half inches of rainfall. They'll get another inch and a half this week.

Todd Gleason: 21:45

That's kind of par for the course for Minnesota. And then in Iowa, a little bit of a different story. However, last week, they had between one and three inches. Really the only place that I tracked that had an inch and three tenths was Iowa City, and and it'll get the best rainfall over the next week at about an inch. Otherwise, that's par for the course for the Western part of Iowa and a half inch in the Eastern part.

Todd Gleason: 22:13

They'll have highs in the low to mid eighties, and here in Illinois, over the last week, not nearly that kind of rainfall. Freeport and Rock Island picked up an inch to an inch and a half, but otherwise, somewhere between six hundredths and half of an inch maybe across the bulk of the state. And next week, that's pretty much par for the course as well over the seven day period with the exception of Mount Vernon, which last week didn't have anything, but this next week will have an inch and a half of rainfall. Temperatures will be warmer in, of course, Illinois, as Don alluded to, in the mid to upper eighties for the maximum temperatures over the next seven days. You've been listening, of course, to the closing market report from Illinois Public Media on this Tuesday afternoon.

Todd Gleason: 23:03

I'm University of Illinois Extensions Todd Gleason. You have a really good day.