Oct 03 | Closing Market Report

Todd Gleason: 00:00

From the land grant university in Urbana Champaign, Illinois, this is the closing market report. It's the October 2025. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity with Mike Zuzolo. He's at globalcomresearch.com out of Atchison, Kansas, and discuss the weather forecast with Eric Snodgrass from Nutrien Ag Solutions and Daggerville.

Todd Gleason: 00:23

If you can stay with us for the whole hour, you'll hear all of our commodity week program today. That was recorded yesterday afternoon with Greg Johnson from TGM, Jim McCormick at agmarket.net, and Chip Nillinger of Blue Reef Agrimarketing. You can always hear it up online too at willag.org, willag.0rg. And many of these radio stations will carry

announce: 00:48

it over the weekend. Todd Gleason's services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.

Todd Gleason: 00:56

Mike Zuzla, globalcommresearch.com out of Atchison, Kansas now joins us. Thanks, Mike, for being with us. Let's start with, whether you've been out and about and how harvest is going around Atchison and then that area first place.

Mike Zuzolo: 01:11

Yeah, I'd say in the general 30 mile radius of Northeast Kansas that I live in, dipping over into Northwestern Missouri. It's kind of a tale of two cities Todd at this point. Broad brushing it, it's not much different than the last time we spoke about the yields where the corn yields probably a little bit more disappointing from versus producer expectations versus two years ago for instance in Northwestern Missouri when yields were causing the corn bins to bust. We're not there. It doesn't sound like we're better than last year but last year was a little bit topsy-turvy depending on where you were.

Mike Zuzolo: 01:52

Disease pressure, I think, has snaked itself south, I think, the main reason from Iowa and across the Iowa border. I actually just got off the phone with a real good Nebraska client who is only about 50 miles from the Kansas border and about 100 miles from the Iowa border. And he told me that they're finding more disease pressure in their corn as well. And that the soybeans are probably the most important for me because we've got this new talk about US policy to support soybean farmers this week. It's really put a floor on the meatus.

Mike Zuzolo: 02:25

But I'm not hearing a lot of bad soybean yields until I get down around I-seventy in Illinois, and especially as you get down to Route 50 kind of train wrecks like bailing soybeans for straw, that kind of talk. And I'm guessing they're double crop, but I I wouldn't doubt there might be some fields of full season beans that didn't make much in that part of the country either. But coming back to my area, I would say that holds mostly true as well in that corn may be a little bit more disappointing. Beans, kinda surprising how they well, they held up in August given the dry weather.

Todd Gleason: 03:00

No. As listeners know, I was early in the week on the farm near Hoopston helping a listener there. And then Wednesday and today I'm on the farm, they probably heard the tractor cart just come up and dump into the tandem that I'm running for the day. Soybeans in the Hoopston area were a little disappointing. I think everybody in East Central Illinois is kind of in that way.

Todd Gleason: 03:24

I think corn is not as good as they had hoped. However, here in the Central part of the state, corn yields are really good, and soybean yields are good too. So we'll see how all of that plays out. Now go back to this politics things. Tell me about what you see happening and what it means for the marketplace.

Mike Zuzolo: 03:44

Yes. And just one other quick note on the yield side of the equation. S and P Global and I think Stonix came out this week on their yield estimates, and it was nice to see them both come down, at least for corn. And while I think S and P Global actually went down on beans, but Stonex, if memory serves me, actually went up a little bit. But that 184.2 number that I'm carrying on national corn yield and 52.9 on soybean yield, I haven't changed that the August report.

Mike Zuzolo: 04:16

So I heading into the September report, I should say. And so I feel real good about that. And in fact, another week or two from now, I might actually bring that down some just because of what I'm hearing in some other areas that are kind of surprising. In that, the early corn does sound like it's maybe going to be the best out there, generally speaking. So going to the politics side, Todd, it's really hard because no one wants a low in the beans more than me right now because they're the leak in the bucket and the hole in the bucket when it comes to the whole market.

Mike Zuzolo: 04:46

And I can easily get past the Green Stocks report, which is hard to believe that it was this week. It seems like it's been three weeks ago for me that so much has come about since the stocks report came out. But I think those feed residual numbers, they always bother me because they're ghost bushels in that USDA themselves. Actually wrote up in 2012 during the drought year how those supply demand numbers really aren't supply demand line items. Feed residuals are essentially the catch all after everything else is factored in.

Mike Zuzolo: 05:18

And they themselves say that. And so to add old crop carryover because you cut feed residual, you could probably make an argument there's some of that going on because of the Mexican cattle situation. You brought that up not long ago to me. I'm on board with that. But I still think they're ghost bushels for the most part as far as that reduction is really not there.

Mike Zuzolo: 05:37

We're still very tight on old crop bean old crop corn. So segueing that to the beans, we got the report we needed. Corn and wheat didn't play along though because of their reports. Now we're kind of evening up here at the end of the week in part because of the President's policy that he's supposed to announce on Tuesday. I would be probably wrong to not say this because again, I want to low like nobody else does or as much as anybody else does in the soybeans.

Mike Zuzolo: 06:05

But I really think China is playing hardball on their negotiations at this point. They want us to change a decades old policy on Taiwan. And that has always been a red line for us that we don't want any kind of independent Taiwan and that they want us to double down on the one China policy. I just can't see any kind of an agreement here with China before the APEC meeting, where the two sides probably will talk in earnest. And if I had to guess, we're probably lined up for the first of the year to get some real bean sales just because our price gets low enough and the South Americans probably run pretty dry.

Todd Gleason: 06:44

Can you discuss just for a moment your recollection of the last time during the Trump administration when we had a government shutdown and we went through, I think, two reports, about this time of year, kind of a lack of direction, if I remember correctly, in the marketplace for the market and for those who were participating because they weren't getting numbers from USDA. What do you expect this time, and what do you recall from the last time?

Mike Zuzolo: 07:12

Yeah. More of the same is what I expect because, you know, we are technically more it's more important, the technical charts. Why? In my opinion, because the the high frequency traders and the AI traders cannot use news headlines as much and data from the government at all now or pretty much at all in agriculture to make price moves. And so they're essentially, in my mind, flying more blind.

Mike Zuzolo: 07:38

And that's what I remember last time. I think what's changed this time versus last time is that we had that deal, the Phase one trade deal with China at this stage of the game. And so we probably were holding up a lot better. Back in that time period, the dollar was on the rise. As we got into mid-twenty eighteen, we went sideways, dipped in September and then we went up pretty much all the way into December before correcting in January 2019.

Mike Zuzolo: 08:07

That is a concern of mine. I'm hoping that the exact opposite is the case in that the the bears have come out of the dollar because of the geopolitics and the trade issues. I'm hoping that they see The US as even weaker because of the shutdown. They doubled down on their short dollar positions, and that's that's the key thing that I'm watching. I'm really glad you brought it up.

Todd Gleason: 08:27

Yesterday during commodity week, it was mentioned that funds, may be rolling out of the marketplace to some extent. Are they looking for a safe haven? And would that be in commodities?

Mike Zuzolo: 08:40

I think they're looking for an ulterior and an alternative to gold and silver and they don't want to go after Bitcoin as it is right now as a stable coin because that's attached to the U. S. Dollar. It is an interesting time period, one that I just got done doing a webinar for the clients talking about the similarities to post World War I where the nationalism, the populism we're hearing more about Marxism, socialism, communism, very reminiscent of the mid-1910s all the way into the 1930s. It feels a lot like that.

Mike Zuzolo: 09:19

And that's a time period where, yes, you could see some investment in commodities. But it would suggest to me that if you have a lot of military conflicts, if you don't have crude oil and wheat going higher, you're probably not going to get a lot of investment into agriculture right now. I would double down almost on the analysis and research that if you really want a major low in the grains, you've really got to get a major low in the crude oil and in the wheat. And almost the exact opposite has been happening this past month or so. And and I think a big part of that is because of this Middle East peace process, and and proposal.

Todd Gleason: 09:56

Thank you much. I appreciate it, Mike.

Mike Zuzolo: 09:58

Thank you, Todd. Have a great weekend, sir.

Todd Gleason: 09:59

You too. Mike Suzulos with comresearch.com out of Atchison, Kansas. Let's check-in on the weather forecast now. We're joined by Eric Snodgrass. He's with NutriNAG Solutions and DaggerBull.

Todd Gleason: 10:24

Hello, Eric. Thanks for being with us today.

Eric Snodgrass: 10:26

Yeah. Thanks for having me back on, Todd.

Todd Gleason: 10:27

Well, let's talk about the hot, dry weather we have had. This feels a whole lot more like August than it does October. That's for sure. Can you give me some indication of how odd this might be?

Eric Snodgrass: 10:40

Well, it's it's actually unprecedented. So when we go back and look at our data sets, which some of them go back to the late 1800s, the stretch of days starting on September, going up until actually all the way through this weekend, are gonna show up as the hottest such stretch of days on record for not just us here in Illinois getting into Wisconsin, but also Iowa, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Montana, and most of the Canadian Prairies. So that's a huge area in North America that the jet streamer system voided for about twenty, twenty five days running way up into the Canadian Archipelago, not into the central part of the country. Now that really, really warm air has promoted high evaporation rates. We are definitely climbing away up on the drop monitor, which by the way, today is now increased over the last eight to nine weeks by 25% area coverage in the Lower 48.

Eric Snodgrass: 11:33

It's kind of funny, Todd. My wife was just asking me before you called, she said, Hey, when's it ever going to rain again? And should we start storing up grain in our shed? I guess a reference to Genesis, but I don't know. It's been so dry and it's promoted fast harvest.

Eric Snodgrass: 11:49

And I understand that's what you're busy doing today.

Todd Gleason: 11:51

Yeah, I am. In fact, you'll hear me maybe say something to Mark Gordon, who is crop fertilizer head. He just is in the midst because you and I are talking at the noon hour of dropping off lunch for me. Hi, Mark. Thank you.

Todd Gleason: 12:05

Oh, great. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. That's Mark Gordon, of course. He dropped off lunch.

Eric Snodgrass: 12:10

That happens. Gordon out there, Tim?

Todd Gleason: 12:12

That happens. Oh, look. My brothers are a little happy about that too. So this is dropping off lunch from the fertilizer dealer. Let's talk a little bit about what's working on

Eric Snodgrass: 12:23

it for the rest of the month of October. I think he's in a hurry

Todd Gleason: 12:26

to get out of here. What's coming up next here in The United States? What does the next outlook like?

Eric Snodgrass: 12:33

Yeah. So, you know, I was getting excited about something coming across the midsection of the country, maybe middle and end of next week. And it was actually gonna be originating in the Pacific. This Atlantic hurricane season has not been able to get a tropical come up out of the Gulf at all. They've all been way out to open ocean.

Eric Snodgrass: 12:53

And even Imelda, which last week when we talked, I would have thought that it was gonna hit the Southeast Coast. But sure enough, Humberto pulled it out to open ocean. The two systems worked in tandem to just stay away from the coast. And as a result, we've gone through another very, very dry week here in the midsection of The United States. And how long is that going to last?

Eric Snodgrass: 13:10

Well, I mentioned something brewing out of the Pacific Ocean, and there is the potential for a tropical system, which likely get the name Priscilla, that is going to make its way maybe into the Southwest. Now that's all the way into next week. And if it does that, it may get pulled into the Sentry House. But look, Todd, I'm pulling on these odd weather pattern features to try to get us some rain in this area. The reality is there's no good pull on moisture out of The Gulf.

Eric Snodgrass: 13:38

And as a result, even with the cold front coming through this weekend, dropping the temperatures down, we're not gonna be able to squeeze much moisture out of the atmosphere. But there will be a welcome change in temperatures coming up, getting us away from these eighties and nineties early next week with a cold front dropping us off about 20 to 30 degrees in temperatures here for a little bit. But even with that, it's still not gonna be what I would call cold for this time of year because we're so warm right now. So Todd, it's a weird pattern. It's hard to pinpoint down anything that's gonna bring in significant change.

Eric Snodgrass: 14:10

And that's why we're looking elsewhere around the world to see if there's any sort of disruptions that can finally do something different for us here.

Todd Gleason: 14:17

Do you see anything?

Eric Snodgrass: 14:18

I'm hunting. It's one of those things where you probably find yourself doing this in the You're like, Well, the fundamentals are doing this, this, and this. You're like, What's going to poke it around? And so you start looking for stories and, Oh, well, this small area did that and this news story is going to do that. That's kind of how we feel right now.

Eric Snodgrass: 14:36

The reality is most of October, until we get some sort of major pattern shift, oh gosh, it looks to be overall on the drier side of average, especially as you get down into the Delta and Southern Plains. But you know as well as I do, one little thing could blow up to become something bigger for the second half of this month. But honestly, for the next couple of weeks, we're gonna still live on the drier side of average. There are chances of rain, but it's still the drier side of average.

Todd Gleason: 15:01

Okay. On the hunt for that one little thing, I believe, I believe, but I'm not certain that Brazil has been a little dry. Is that the case, and will that be maintained?

Eric Snodgrass: 15:13

It won't. I mean, the the reality is they got all the rain about, what was it, ten days ago from the front. Then it's gone dry. It's going to be dry for another probably seven to ten days and it's going be hot. But they're trying to plant a crop.

Eric Snodgrass: 15:26

So this open dryness is going to allow them to rapidly get into the fields on the hope that starting around maybe the fifteenth, they're gonna see some more rain. And some of the models confirm that that rain is gonna be coming back at that time frame, meaning that they're gonna get a wide open planting window and then put the water on top of it to get germination going. And so unfortunately for us, if that forecast verifies, that's gonna be a major positive signal for them going forward.

Todd Gleason: 15:52

And about the La Nina in Argentina, sometimes that is helpful for prices because it remains dry there, though it's really early in the year for them.

Eric Snodgrass: 16:00

I think that's right. If if there's gonna be a problem, it's gonna be during their summer. And remember, they just started spring. So we'll watch to see how strong this La Nina is. By most accounts, Todd, this La Nina and its progression, plus the ocean temperatures surrounding it both in the North And South Pacific and even in the Atlantic, I'd have to tell you that maybe one of the stronger analogs showing up in the package is last year, last fall and last winter, which if you don't remember, we finally turned on the water back in November, but we stayed mild in November and December overall, and didn't get a really good shot of cold air until we got into January and February.

Eric Snodgrass: 16:38

So it was a back half loaded winter in terms of temperatures, but did not bring in the snowfall. And because last year is coming up as an analog, I think we need to be just remembering the most recent winter we've had as decent guidance on the winter we're about to have. And don't forget, that really didn't cause massive problems with all of South America last year either. So maybe that's not the forecast people wanted to hear, but that's where my mind is at, today here on Friday.

Todd Gleason: 17:05

Anything else that you've been watching that we need to be aware of, or are we good for the day?

Eric Snodgrass: 17:09

Well, there's something neat that I think would be kinda fun to talk about. We had Imelda and Humberto, both powerful hurricanes in the Atlantic at one time. They did almost break a record for the distance between two active hurricanes, earlier this week. They got within 467 miles of one another. That's very, very close.

Eric Snodgrass: 17:29

They then quickly separated. And today, right now, the remnants of Umberto are ripping across Great Britain with a 100, kilometers per hour winds and a bunch of rain. So that's what often happens. Our old decaying weather systems from The US Of The Atlantic, they just go off to Europe to die, and one of them today is over in Great Britain.

Todd Gleason: 17:47

One question about that. Do hurricanes ever actually combine into a single event as they as they close together?

Eric Snodgrass: 17:57

That's a good question. The answer is no. And if you think about it, think about two gears. So you get them both spinning the same direction. If you put them next to one another, they would chip against each other.

Eric Snodgrass: 18:07

They would be going in the opposite directions when their sides collide. And so as a result, hurricanes don't form in together to make one big hurricane. They orbit around one another. And that's something we call the Fujiwara effect, which is what happened to both Imelda and Umberto earlier this week, sparing the Southeast Coast from a major lane following hurricane.

Todd Gleason: 18:26

I love learning new things. Thank you.

Eric Snodgrass: 18:29

You bet. That, of course,

Todd Gleason: 18:30

is Eric Snodgrass from Nutrien Ag Solutions in Dagrabill joined us on this edition of the closing market report. It came to you from Illinois Public Medium. Commodity Week is next.

Mike Zuzolo: 18:46

Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.

Todd Gleason: 18:51

Well, welcome to Commodity Week. I am Todd Gleason. Our panelists for the day include Jim McCormick. He's at agmarket.net out of Barrington Illinois. Greg Johnson joins us from Champaign Illinois at TGM Total Grain Marketing and Chip Nellinger is here from Blue Reef Agri Marketing that's bluereaf.agblureaf.ag online.

Todd Gleason: 19:12

He is in Morton, Illinois. Commodity Week, of course, is a production of Illinois Public Media. It's public radio for the farming world online on demand anytime you'd like to listen to us at willag.org willg.0rg. I think we have quite a bit to talk about this week gentlemen but let's get a list of items from each of you that we might want to discuss. Jim McCormick from agmarket.net we'll start with you what's on your list?

Jim McCormick: 19:41

I say probably the two big talking points that we probably need to talk to you about is the, you know, the China deal of the president Trump's tweet earlier in the week about trying to meet with Xi in four weeks and then, Scott Bessette's comment earlier, you know, this week about maybe a soybean buy a soybean bailout for the soybean producers here announced next week. And then we also probably need to talk about the ramifications of the quarterly grain stock report that was released earlier in the week.

Todd Gleason: 20:06

Greg Johnson from TGM Total Grain Marketing, what's on your mind as you're taking a lot of crop in, I suppose, at the elevator?

Greg Johnson: 20:14

Yeah. And I think that the yields that we're getting probably need to be discussed a little bit. And is that general across the Midwest? Or is that just kind of isolated to certain areas? What in general are we hearing?

Greg Johnson: 20:32

And then not only on the supply side, but then the demand side, what will we see as far as demand to offset these big crops when it comes to ethanol exports, for example, and or soybean trade deal with China. So we've got both the supply side and the demand side to talk about.

Todd Gleason: 20:53

Nothing, by the way, until we get the government back to work and probably delayed until until we see the supply and demand tables. That is from the World Ag Supply and Demand Estimates. We'll get back to that just a bit. Chip Nellinger from Blue Reef Agra Marketing. What's on your list?

Chip Nellinger: 21:10

Yeah. I agree with everything that's been discussed so far. I I think, something that's kinda hitting my my radar screen here just, recently, the last, day or two. Are we starting to see some money flow changes from the funds now that we're into a new quarter? You've seen some big moves in the metals, some pressure in the livestock markets, and some strength in the grain.

Chip Nellinger: 21:32

So, are we seeing a little bit of money flow change compared to, what we've been used to over the last, you know, three or four quarters in here?

Todd Gleason: 21:39

Well, let's pick up there. Why don't you talk to me a little bit about that? Where do you see the money changing hands at mostly, and is it flowing in to or out of the commodity markets?

Chip Nellinger: 21:51

Well, that's the question, Todd, and I don't know if it's outside market influences. I'm I'm not sure if it's the government shutdown. Obviously, the, you know, the comments and the the tweets and and comments from president Trump about supporting soybean farmers, might be supporting the grain markets, but I just noticed today, especially, you know, the the metals markets, you know, pushing up into new all time highs here recently. They're under some heavy selling pressure. The cattle market obviously isn't a two point five year bull market.

Chip Nellinger: 22:21

Looks like maybe some shine is off of that. You know, the the strength there and they've been aggressive sellers there and you've had some nice buying across the entire grain sector here. So I don't know if it's new money coming into the commodity markets necessarily. I think it may just be the start of some some shifting maybe from, you know, assets or commodities that they have a lot of profits in and maybe coming out of some of these, you know, short grain positions that they've got profits in as well. Maybe they're just taking some money off the table with the uncertainty of the government shutdown and some geopolitical risks out there.

Todd Gleason: 23:00

Chip Nellinger is with Blue Reef Agrimarketing, joined us on our commodity week program recorded Thursday afternoon along with Greg Johnson of TGM Total Grain Marketing, the elevator in Champaign County, and Jim McCormick of agmarket.net. He's in Barrington, Illinois. You can hear all of commodity week anytime you'd like on our website at willag.org, willag.0rg, and many of these radio stations will carry it over the weekend. You, course, have been listening to the closing market report on this Friday afternoon. Be safe.

Todd Gleason: 23:34

Have a great harvest. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason.