Jun 05 | Closing Market Report

Todd Gleason: 00:00

From the Land Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois, this is the closing market reported as the June 2025. I'm extension's Todd Gleeson. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Matt Bennett from AgMarket.net. We will take a trip to summer camp with Rod Bain at USDA. We'll hear also from Mike Tanura at T Storm Weather about the forecast across the Midwest and the Corn Belt, and we'll get into the weigh back machine today and visit the island nation of Haiti on this Thursday edition of the closing market report from Illinois public media.

Todd Gleason: 00:37

Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension. July corn for the day settled at $4.39 and a half. That was 3 quarters of a cent higher. September, '3 and a half higher. December, up four and a half.

Todd Gleason: 00:50

It settled at $4.48 and a quarter. July beans at $10.50 1 and 3 quarters, up six and three quarters. August up seven and three quarters, and the November '8 and a quarter higher. That new crop at $10.33 and a quarter. Wheat futures in the soft red finished up 2 and a half cents.

Todd Gleason: 01:09

Matt Bennett from AgMarket.net now joins us to take a look at the marketplace. Hi, Matt. Thank you for being with us. Tell me about what you saw in the commodity markets that you liked and disliked so far this week.

Matt Bennett: 01:22

Well, think one of the more incredible things going on with the markets right now is this cattle market. I mean, an absolute stunner of a day. You saw July, or June cattle fats, settle 4 and a half dollars higher at, $2.22 90. And you saw feeders settle 5, 5 and a quarter higher, over $309. And so, to be honest with you, with the lack of a whole lot of excitement otherwise, I think that's the most interesting thing.

Matt Bennett: 01:54

Now you look at corn market, you know, and overall, I mean, December corn here, has posted three straight higher closes. It's interesting to note, that the overnight markets are doing a little bit of bull spreading. But if you came in and sold July corn at the close of the overnight market every day this week, you'd have made all kinds of money by buying it back during the day session. So today, again, we saw July corn. I don't have a settlement, but I've got the close and it's down a half whereas Dees corn's up three and a half.

Matt Bennett: 02:24

So it's been very interesting to see that, especially as around here, you know, you continue to see some of this basis improvement going on really throughout the Midwest. And with that the case, typically, you see bull spreading, and that's not what we've got this year. So very interesting market we're dealing with.

Todd Gleason: 02:41

I'm gonna bring you back to that cattle stunner because it did gap higher on the daily chart today. Why did that happen?

Matt Bennett: 02:47

You know, a couple of different things are going on with cattle. Okay. When you look at this cattle deal, clearly, there's been a lot of talk about trade stuff. Some of the trade that we've been talking about could potentially be good for beef. Now you've got in back back in you've got in and out, going back and forth.

Matt Bennett: 03:09

It's it's really hard to know what's actually gonna stick, but the the overwhelming thing, Todd, is that the cash market is so strong. I mean, they said that there was two thirty offers, you know, in in Texas and parts of Kansas today that no one showed up to sell the cattle for. And so you've got guys that's got fast that are actually saying, hold on. I'm I'm gonna wait just a little bit, which is a really incredible thing, especially as a lot of these guys have fed them to heavier weights. And so, I mean, this cattle market is nothing short of just flat out impressive.

Matt Bennett: 03:45

And so we've known fundamentally for some time it was gonna be a strong market. We know the funds continue to have a really strong long position in the market. But right now, you're seeing some convergence is what it boils down to. You're finally seeing the future try to chase down the the cash, and I I don't know that they're gonna do it just yet.

Todd Gleason: 04:05

Well, what does that mean at the meat counter, do you think? I mean, we have had highest priced beef. It's just gonna keep going up.

Matt Bennett: 04:11

Well, you would think so. But, I mean, this cash market, it's no secret that it's been strong at 2 and a quarter, $2.30, even a little higher for the last week or two. You continue to see really strong cash offers out there. Is it gonna go up substantially from where we've already been? I would say that that may not necessarily be the case, but it's already been awfully high.

Matt Bennett: 04:33

And what we've seen is where basis how much supply we have, you're continuing to see people buy ribeye steaks. I mean, that's all there is to it. I mean, yes, there could be some substitution there. Whenever you look and and see what hogs did today, I mean, you know, you do have front month hog futures in the triple digits, but hogs ended up close and basically mixed. And so really wasn't anything too exciting in the hogs trade here today, especially whenever you see cattle are just skyrocketing.

Matt Bennett: 05:06

So, yeah, there could be some substitution in there somewhere, but we're sure not seeing a lot of it just yet.

Todd Gleason: 05:10

And now turn your attention back to the grains and the oilseeds. Soybeans, like the corn, managed a better end of the day. Actually, they finished better than the corn altogether, up somewhere between 5 and 7¢. What are you thinking about that marketplace?

Matt Bennett: 05:27

You know, we're just kinda flopping around whenever you look at soybeans. I mean, if you look at July beans, for instance, all of your moving averages are essentially within about 9¢. I mean, that's just an incredible deal when you're talking about a bean market that's trading here at $10.50. And so it tells you that there should be some sort of a breakout that would happen somewhere in here. So we've been comparing this year to 2018 on the chart because that's the last time we saw, you know, this big type of a a trade deal, in essence, tariffs put in place.

Matt Bennett: 06:04

You don't wanna look and see what the November bean chart did back in 2018 because it just went straight down into July option expiration. I'm not suggesting we're gonna see that here this year. And and quite frankly, today was a really nice thing to see actually that we traded higher again. So you look at July beans, and you've got three straight higher closes. You look over at no beans, same thing.

Matt Bennett: 06:28

Three straight higher closes. Now we're not setting the world on fire, but by all means, we're not plummeting, you know, like what we've been comparing back to 2018 for. So right now, I mean, beans are actually competitive in Europe and in the North Africa. There are people that are wanting to actually buy a few US beans. And this time in the marketing year, that's pretty impressive, quite frankly.

Todd Gleason: 06:48

What's your advice for those old crop gambling stocks?

Matt Bennett: 06:51

Old crop corn. I mean, basically, now you're just betting on mother nature. Is she gonna throw something at us? I mean, basis has been strong. A lot of these guys hauling into your processors are saying they're just going in, getting probed, and going straight to the dump and dumping.

Matt Bennett: 07:06

Hours that we see at the processors in this part of the world are 6AM to 6PM tells me that they need some corn. So if you do get into a weather issue, now that basis has shown its cards a little bit, you could get a pop in this market. But we have to get a weather issue, Todd. I mean, quite frankly, right now, conditions are pretty good. Yes.

Matt Bennett: 07:24

There's forecast for hot and dry weather later in the year, especially Western Corn Belt, but we don't know if that'll come to pass or not. You hate to base your marketing plan on mother nature.

Todd Gleason: 07:34

Hey. Thanks much. I'll talk to you for commodity week today.

Matt Bennett: 07:37

Alright. Sounds good, bud.

Todd Gleason: 07:38

That's Matt Bennett. He is with AgMarket.net. We're going to reach into the wayback machine today. You know, twelve years ago next month, I traveled to Haiti along with Ron Moore and Joe Murphy from the Illinois Soybean Association. Now you might be surprised to learn that agricultural associations really do a lot of nutritional work.

Todd Gleason: 08:03

Naturally, that happens here on campus too, in this case at the National Soybean Research Lab. It was working in 2013 with USDA and a Haiti based not for profit called Meds and Food for Kids to fight malnutrition in the Caribbean nation while at the same time creating economic prosperity. That not for profit still exists. More on that after we hear about what it, USDA, and in SRL were up to more than a decade ago on the north end of the island nation of Haiti. Cap Haitien is filled with people, not as many as Port Au Prince, Haiti, but it is crowded.

Todd Gleason: 08:41

And like the rest of the some 11,000,000 inhabitants of this sunny island in the Gulf Of Mexico, they can be desperately poor. Well, the earthquake a few years ago made a bad situation worse, says Patricia Wolff. She used to be a pediatrician from St. Louis, Missouri, and has volunteered in Haiti since the late 1980s. She says over the decades, it became clear to her more needed to be done here to fight childhood malnutrition.

Patricia Wolff: 09:07

For the first fifteen years, I was in a village clinic. I saw sick kids, and I treated them with medicine. Why were they sick? They were sick because they had an infection. Why did they have an infection?

Patricia Wolff: 09:20

They had an infection because they were immune deficient because they were malnourished. So I was treating the result of malnutrition, but not treating the malnutrition. So after fifteen years of coming once a year, twice a year, three times a year, four times a year, and finding the same kids sick or dead the next time I came, it was clear that we had to do something about malnutrition and that giving medicine for kids who were sick because they were malnourished was too little, too late.

Todd Gleason: 09:49

So Patricia Wolf took an idea from one of her colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis and started making ready to use therapeutic food. She calls it Metakaka Mamba, or peanut butter medicine. She says the recipe is the gold standard for treating malnutrition all over the world.

Patricia Wolff: 10:06

It's peanuts, powdered milk, sugar, oil, vitamins and minerals for severe malnutrition. And for moderate malnutrition and for prevention of malnutrition, it is, it is soybeans and a little bit of milk and peanuts and sugar and oil and vitamins and minerals. We make both of those products and we also make a product for school snack, which we just tested, with the United States Department of Agriculture grant and in partnership with the National Soybean Research Lab at the University of Illinois, which has been a great hit.

Todd Gleason: 10:42

The recipe for the school snack is pretty simple too. It contains peanuts, soy flour, sugar, soybean oil, vitamins and minerals. The kids eat it just after arriving to school, almost always on an empty stomach.

Patricia Wolff: 10:54

Preliminary results are an improvement in anemia, an improvement in sick days, and much more activity on the playground and much more interaction in the classroom.

Todd Gleason: 11:06

And Patricia Wolf says many happy children and many happy teachers. About 800 kids were fed the peanut and soybean based school snack. Madsen Food for Kids has a really nice plant on the North Side Of Haiti. It was built with love and volunteers from the drawing board up and a great big loan from LGT Venture Philanthropy. LGT helps social organizations to grow with grants, loans and equity investments with the explicit objectives of not interfering with the competition and in accordance with free market principles.

Todd Gleason: 11:40

In short, it wants to improve the quality of life of less advantaged people by investing in them locally. Meds and food for kids can do that in four ways, says the founder, Patricia Wolf.

Patricia Wolff: 11:51

So we treat malnourished kids with as many as much free product as we can afford to from donations. We help peanut farmers grow more and better peanuts so their incomes improve and their children are not in our malnutrition programs, and their quality improves so that the whole country is not affected by this toxin called aflatoxin, which is ubiquitous in Haiti at present unless we have monitored and mentored, the peanut farming. We also do research and development on new products like this school snack, and we produce it in a factory.

Todd Gleason: 12:32

That fourth point is mighty important to Wolfe, the company that made the loan, and Haiti.

Patricia Wolff: 12:37

We could make it cheaper in The United States and import it to Haiti. Everybody does that. That is rescue. There is rescue leads to nothing but more rescue. People need jobs.

Patricia Wolff: 12:49

People need training. They need a future. No one's gonna rescue Haiti and Haitians forever. Someone has to stay on the ground for a long time and build industry and build skill sets and build food safety kind of standards. None of those exist.

Patricia Wolff: 13:07

In order to make forward progress in the country of Haiti so that people can live here, keep their families alive, and not not hope for rescue from abroad.

Todd Gleason: 13:21

Well, the old proverb in practice for the kids and the adults of Haiti, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Show him how to catch fish and you feed him for a lifetime. I produced that story in July of twenty thirteen. The Meds and Food for Kids website today reports it has treated more than one million malnutritioned infants, toddlers, school children, and pregnant and nursing mothers with its ready to use therapeutic and supplemental foods produced in its Haitian factory. Ninety two percent of the children with severe acute malnutrition treated with the products are cured in just eight to twelve weeks.

Todd Gleason: 13:58

While I was in Haiti with the Illinois Soybean Association, we visited the factory in Cap Haitian, and we also talked with poultry producers there about importing US soybean meal to help jump start a fledgling ag industry across The Caribbean. At the time, Americans were eating a lot of white meat from chickens, but the dark meat was being exported. That, of course, has changed as wings and drummies have become a staple of Sunday football and all other kinds of events in The United States. So our little mission to Haiti was twofold. We checked in on how Medsin Food for Kids was doing while setting the stage for soybean exports to the Caribbean nations.

Todd Gleason: 14:38

This story is an example of how the National Soybean Research Lab here on the University of Illinois campus along with USDA and the Illinois Soybean Association have played a role in these endeavors. Up next, it's summer camp time with Rod Bain from USDA.

Rod Bain: 14:56

Summertime means for several children summer camps which can be a scary experience if it's their first time away from home. Just ask Alan Sherman. But like the end of that classic song Hello Mata, Hello Fata where our hero finds summer camp can be really fun once it stops raining that is. Most kids get over their initial fears and really enjoy their time at camp. However, University of Missouri Extension's Valinda Cameron says for some children

U of Missouri: 15:29

Sometimes regardless of what you do, you're still going to have a child that will become home sick.

Rod Bain: 15:34

So what's a parent to do in advance of camp to get their children used to the summer camp away from home experience? Cameron offers some ideas, starting with

U of Missouri: 15:43

Going stay all night with a grandparent maybe to start with because that is a family member that the child is very accustomed to and feels very safe with.

Rod Bain: 15:53

Then branch out and let the child stay overnight with a friend. Also

U of Missouri: 15:56

You could also even take the child to the site where they will be staying for the camp and just allow them to see what is there. This helps for the younger children just so they don't have all of these big imaginary monsters and all these terrible things roaming around in their head as to what is going to be at the camp.

Rod Bain: 16:15

Parents can also help the child prepare for camp by being prepared, sending the camp all pertinent health and contact information about the child. For example

U of Missouri: 16:24

Typically, every camp will have some kind of a form, and that has all of the pertinent information, parents' work numbers, their cell phone numbers, home phone numbers, addresses, maybe even another emergency person to call, and then it would have all of your information regarding insurance and all of those types of things in the event there was an emergency, an accident, or a child needed medical treatment of some sort.

Rod Bain: 16:49

And sending the child with proper clothing for any possibility. Just don't send the kids whole wardrobe. And any items a parent wishes a child to return home with should be properly labeled. And what about bringing food or extra money? Cameron says don't send a child with more money than necessary and make sure there are proper means to secure such funds.

Rod Bain: 17:06

And as for bringing food to camp, Cameron says that's not a good idea to avoid unwanted visitors to cabins and campsites like raccoons, squirrels, mice, even snakes. So in summary

U of Missouri: 17:17

To make camp a fun experience, be prepared. Talk to the child, possibly visit the area, but most importantly, tell them that you love them, you want them to have a good time, and you yourself be positive as the adult, the apparent.

Todd Gleason: 17:31

Disregard this letter.

Rod Bain: 17:33

I'm Rod Bain reporting for the US Department of Agriculture in Washington DC.

Todd Gleason: 17:37

Thanks to Rod Bain for that. I hope that your kids, if they're of the age, will make a trip to four h camp this summer. By the way, four h memorial camp right here in the state of Illinois will celebrate its seventy fifth anniversary this year, and my son Jared is the director of the state four h camp in Kansas. So we covered Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas today. Let's check-in now with the president and CEO of t storm weather.

Todd Gleason: 18:20

That's tstorm.net online, Mike Diner. He's here. Thank you, Mike, for being with us again. Can you go through the places across the Midwest, the Corn Belt, where we do need rain and maybe where we don't need so much rain at this point?

Mike Tannura: 18:38

Yeah. That's a great question. We have a pretty sharp divide between dry conditions and wet conditions. If you start in Montana and then move across the Dakotas and into Minnesota, it's been very dry over the last two weeks. This is affecting spring wheat with about 95% of their crop drier than normal over the last two weeks.

Mike Tannura: 18:58

You keep on moving to the Southeast into the heart of the Corn Belt in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa and it was pretty dry until a few days ago. We saw some nice rains over the last few days. And that's kind of taken away the dryness story that might have been developing. Now everybody else to the South, which includes most of Kansas and Nebraska onto the South through Oklahoma and Texas, and then right on into the Mid South, That whole region has been pretty wet in recent weeks and they're going to stay wet going forward. That wet region has quite a bit more rain to get through over the next three to four days before they'll finally start to dry out a little bit.

Todd Gleason: 19:37

So what about those northern areas? Are they going to manage to get some rainfall?

Mike Tannura: 19:41

Well, not for a little bit. It looks like the Dakotas will be pretty dry over the next seven days. Now I say that while it is raining a little bit in South Dakota today, but this is a pretty minor event and most of North Dakota will only tap into minor totals as well. So basically that spring wheat crop is not going to get much rain over the next week. It's kind of the same story for most of the Corn Belt.

Mike Tannura: 20:03

There are some showers around today and those will be around over the next three to four days, but we're just not looking for a big event. So basically, the story to the north is going to be for drying conditions to become more notable for spring wheat. That'll really start to put some pressure on the forecast that follows. Now, we think there are going to be thunderstorms coming up one to two weeks out in the northern growing regions that would include most of the Northern Plains and in Minnesota where we would need some of this rain. That's primarily because the jet stream is going to flow directly overhead one to two weeks out, and that should be a nice setup for thunderstorms for them.

Todd Gleason: 20:40

What do we see as it's related to temperature growing degree days might pick up or not as we move into the month of June?

Mike Tannura: 20:47

Well, they're gonna fall behind over the next five days. There's a pretty cool air mass in place and that's going to linger for a while. So that'll kind of be the story into next week. Once we get later into next week, things will start to warm up. We'll first see temperatures start popping into the 80s and 90s in the Dakotas on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then that very warm air mass will overspread the corn belt.

Mike Tannura: 21:08

So we will start to see things improve for corn and soybeans with growth rates, and that'll be because of that warmer weather coming up. Now with that warmer weather, we already talked about that jet stream that's going to more or less line up in the Northern US. You take a very warm air mass, you put a jet stream near it, that's a pretty good recipe for thunderstorms. So we think we're going to start tapping into some rainfall one to two weeks out. And just because of that, this mixed bag story we have today where it's a little dry in some areas, a little wet in others, some people could use some rain, some people might not want any rain.

Mike Tannura: 21:41

And that forecast coming up is just going to be right in the middle zone again with some rain here, some rain there improving in the north, but just a mixed story. Todd, sometimes at this time of the year, we have these real nice clean stories where we know it's getting dry, we know the forecast, we know what that means for corn and soybeans. But where it sits today, everybody's just kind of right in the middle. We're not really getting too crazy on the dry or the wet side. We're not too cool, we're not too hot.

Mike Tannura: 22:10

We're just kinda moving along here right in the middle for now.

Todd Gleason: 22:12

Looking ahead to some uncertainty. We'll see how it all plays out and ask you again about it next week.

Mike Tannura: 22:18

Sounds great, Todd.

Todd Gleason: 22:19

Mike Tenora is with t storm weather. That's tstorm.net online. Joined us on this Thursday edition of the closing market report that comes to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand at w I l l a g dot o r g. Where later this afternoon, you will find our commodity week program.

Todd Gleason: 22:39

Our panelists this week include Matt Bennett from AgMarket.net, Aaron Curtis of MITCO, and Ellen Dearden from AgReview Commodity Week, our weekly look at what's happened in the world of agricultural commodities on demand online this afternoon at willag.0rg. You'll hear all of that program if you can listen to our home station tomorrow, and many of these radio stations will carry it over the weekend. I'm Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Doctor. JACKSON: