- Naomi Blohm, TotalFarmMarketing.com
- Jim McCormick, AgMarket.net
- Arlan Suderman, StoneX.com
This is the November 20 edition of Commodity Week.
announce: 00:09Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason: 00:14Oh, welcome to Commodity Week. I am Todd Gleason. Our panelists for the day include Arlen Suderman. He is with Stonex. Naomi Bloem is here from Total Farm Marketing, and we're joined by Jim McCormick at agmarket.net.
Todd Gleason: 00:26Commodity Week is a production of Illinois. Public media, you can find and listen to us online at willag.org, willag.0rg. Our winter meeting season for the Farm Doc team kicks off in December on the twelfth at the Farm Assets Conference, the Agra Center in Bloomington. The cost for this daylong event, including your new meal, is just $80. The Farm Doc team will be there along with representatives from the corn growers, the soybean association, ag leadership in the state of Illinois.
Todd Gleason: 00:56And you should double that up, by the way, with following weeks, Illinois Farm Economic Summits. The PharmDoc team and myself will be on the road. We'll be in DeKalb, Peoria, and Mount Vernon on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, December. You can sign up for all of those meetings at the PharmDoc daily website. It's actually easier to find if you just go to willag.org, willag.0rg.
Todd Gleason: 01:20You'll find it right at the top of the page. Farm assets is easy. Just hit the registration page. There's a little link there that says IFES, I f e s, for Illinois Farm Economic Summit to get yourself registered for that as well. I think you should register for both.
Todd Gleason: 01:34Probably important, your banker will be there. I see those all come in. You probably should be sitting in the room to hear the same information they are hearing as well. Sign up today. Now let's talk a little bit about the marketplace.
Todd Gleason: 01:48Jim McCormick, we'll start with you. What are the most important things that have happened in the last two weeks in your opinion as it's related to the corn, soybean, sweet, or other commodity markets?
Jim McCormick: 01:59Well, I think the two major prod things are, first, Todd, we did have the USDA report, and, I'd say the corn yield is definitely questionable by the farm community. They just don't think that one eighty six is there. The other thing we definitely have to talk about is it does look like China is starting to execute on their pledge to buy beans from The United States. Now how much are they gonna buy? I think it's still up from debate.
Jim McCormick: 02:20We know what the White House said, 12,000,000 metric tons. We don't know what really the Chinese actually agreed to because they've yet to say anything, but they have started to do some buying, and I think that's something we definitely need to dive into.
Todd Gleason: 02:31Arlen, because you're here, we'll start with that one eighty six number. You get blamed for it a little bit because Stonax did come out with a number that was in that range just before the November crop production report was released. How did you come up with the number, and how did USDA come up with the number relatively speaking? We have some ideas on both of those, but how's you you you came at them from two different directions. USDA, of course, had their October samples.
Todd Gleason: 02:56They had their November samples and farmer surveys. How about you?
Arlan Suderman: 03:00Yeah. And ours is customer surveys. And frankly, I was I was shocked that it was still at one eighty six, but it is what our customers have told us, and our customers have a great track record of pegging the yield. And so I have confidence in that for now, and we'll see where USDA now USDA, as you said, surveyed farmers, they sampled fields. In some states, the sample numbers were lower than normal.
Arlan Suderman: 03:24Other states, they were pretty normal. So it varied by state, but it did match up with what our customer survey was and what they were seeing in the field. And I know there are some areas of the Midwest where the yields were very disappointing this year, but there are other areas that nobody talked about where the yields were just fantastic, very impressive, and broke records by quite a margin. The two sides balance each other out, so to speak. So regardless, it is a big crop.
Arlan Suderman: 03:52The the only argument is how big, how much of a record is it, and USDA will settle that in January once they're able to get their stocks numbers in there to kind of act as a correction.
Todd Gleason: 04:04Naomi, when we talked on Tuesday, you said we're gonna talk more about this when I get to Thursday in NAFB in Kansas City. That's where we're all located today at the National Association of Farm Broadcasting Convention. The numbers at one eighty six is a big number. It's I don't know that you heard that exactly from your clientele base, and and I don't know whether the farmers believe it or not. The question really is, should they and should they act as if the USDA is correct?
Todd Gleason: 04:34Mostly over the decades, brokers have said, you know, in the end, regardless of what you think, USDA is right because that's the number we end up with.
Naomi Blohm: 04:43Yeah. Good points all the way around. You know, I I'm still of the opinion that the USDA will lower the yield number in January. I don't think they're gonna make it any bigger. But the question would be, do they just lower it one or two bushels?
Naomi Blohm: 04:55I don't think that they'll go below one eighty one probably. So we we will wait and see. And that's gonna be the thing with the markets right now is that while we're waiting to see corn market, corn futures might struggle to gain traction for pricing opportunities. So where I wanna bring this back to is what the producer needs to be mindful of. So we can argue all day long until we're boom in the face about where those yield numbers gonna be at.
Naomi Blohm: 05:20You know, again, my clients telling me very, very different numbers that were on the lower spectrum of things. So that's my bias why it's gonna be down. But as a farmer, the tricky part is balancing all of these different fundamentals that are coming out and ultimately knowing when you're going to pull the trigger on those cash sales because you guys have corn in the bins. You're sitting on it, and I don't know what kind of hail Mary you're gonna be waiting for. But we want that kind of a you know, some kind of a market rally, but we have to be realistic with the potential price points that are out there.
Naomi Blohm: 05:52So now that's when we lean on technical charts. That's when we lean on outside market information. That's when we lean on seasonal patterns to help us to be ready to pull the trigger in case we get some sort of a a push higher here into the New Year.
Todd Gleason: 06:06So I'm gonna follow-up with you, on what producers ought to do. So, technically, where should they be thinking about the marketplace? And I guess, technically, what what are your targets? And how should they go about setting, orders for making cash sales?
Naomi Blohm: 06:25Okay. So a couple of things. When I look at our March corn futures chart, we have big resistance at four fifty on the daily chart. When I look at the chart right now, there is an upside down inverted head and shoulders formation that potentially, if we get friendly news, would point to an upside swing objective of about 35¢. So if you add 35¢ to $4.50, you're talking $4.85.
Naomi Blohm: 06:50Notice I'm not saying $5 corn. Let me repeat that. Notice I'm not saying $5 corn. Okay? So we're looking at March futures potentially to $4.85.
Naomi Blohm: 07:00So I think from a a friendlier standpoint, that could be a potential target to get some cash sales triggered for corn in your bin. But, again, if we don't get the friendly news, we could just be stuck in a sideways trading pattern where we are in a range of $4.50, maybe down to $4.35 for a few weeks.
Todd Gleason: 07:20Your colleague is a good technician, Brian Split. You sit in the same office with him, Jim McCormick. What do you and he been talking about as it's related to targets? And how is JSA and agmarket.net getting producers set to take advantage of those targets?
Jim McCormick: 07:36We see the exact same chart pattern that Naomi's talking about, so that would be your chart chart objective. On the fundamental side, I'm a little bit worried, Todd. I mean, the fact of the matter is we the trade was trading a 1,300,000,000.0 carryout all mentally all last summer. It ended up being a 1.5. This market spot corn couldn't get over four forty corn from July 4 on, and we've been in a dead sideways market literally for the last six months.
Jim McCormick: 08:04You got a carryout hanging out at 2,100,000,000.0. A lot of people do believe the air that yield's gonna go lower. I'm in that camp, but I think the feed number's too high. That's gonna keep that carryout, I think, right around 2,100,000,000. If you're an end user, I fear why chase corn over four fifty?
Jim McCormick: 08:20They'll let it pop up here, and then they just say, look. There's no economic reason to do it unless we have an outside force. China come in and are buying or maybe a problem with the South American crop. So we're actually encouraging some guys to consider, you know, maybe don't look at the spot month. You've got grain in the bin.
Jim McCormick: 08:35Consider selling that carry that you may not you may shoot for that four eighty five corn in the spot, but you might get it in the July contract. If the opportune opportunity to lock that in for those levels, we would do some of it simply because we don't know what the government's gonna give us on Friday or, excuse me, in January.
Todd Gleason: 08:51What's JSA telling you of the elevator system that you guys, agmarket.net works so closely with, telling you about the size of the crop and and the kinds of things that they are hearing as it relates to demand, domestically and in the export market.
Jim McCormick: 09:07Right now, the export market's been phenomenal. We really don't know exactly what it is because we got the flash sale update, but we don't know the day to day. And I'm not sure why it's gonna take the government a year a month and a half, two months to give us this data. It's the same argument on the c t CFTC numbers. I don't understand why they can't just give us this data in this modern age.
Jim McCormick: 09:29But right now, the export demand has been very good for the corn. We think it's gonna sustain itself. We do anticipate the basis to improve in general in certain locations as a farmer holds very, very tight. I think in general, though, the commercial guys seem to think the crop is there. I think they're in a little bit more on the higher end, like, one eighty three to one eighty six zone, I think, is where it seems like it is.
Jim McCormick: 09:48The crop in the West really seems big.
Todd Gleason: 09:50Arlen Suderman, I wanna ask a different question because I want you to remind me exactly and the listeners exactly what it is that Stonex does. What is the primary purpose of the company?
Arlan Suderman: 10:01We're risk mitigators. I mean, what we do is work with everyone from producers to end users to help mitigate their risk. So if you're a producer, obviously your risk is prices going down before you've been able before you're able to sell. And so we would help them put on positions to protect that risk. If you're an end user, your risk is that prices go up.
Arlan Suderman: 10:24And so we help put on those positions. So to us, it doesn't matter the size of the crop, but it does matter to provide as accurate information as we can to help our customers make those decisions on where their risks lie. And I would just go back to what Jim's saying is our analysis based on our customer surveys who are out there is that it's a good sized crop, but he talked about the ending stocks. That's the bottom line. The market's eventually going to trade.
Arlan Suderman: 10:53And I'd say there's two factors here. First, USDA is helping the farmer by printing an abnormally low ending stocks. And when we say abnormally low 2,100,000,000, they were basically solving for that by keeping feed stuff feed usage elevated, 600,000,000 bushel increase from year to year on feed usage when we have fewer animals out there being fed. That can't hold up. So USDA is hoping that the yield comes down so they can erase some of that feed usage.
Arlan Suderman: 11:23That's item number one. The other is we have a China premium in there. We don't know at what point that China premium will go away when the trade agreement might fall apart because China is already welching on the rare earth minerals part of it, and that is the number one priority for the Trump administration from a national security standpoint. So all of this could fall apart at any point. So risk management is essential here, not trying to get the highest price possible.
Arlan Suderman: 11:50Although it's we'd all like to have $8 for our corn, but making sure you're not caught if this suddenly the headlines in the morning are that 100% tariffs are coming back on and China's stopping purchases.
Todd Gleason: 12:02Can I ask you a question about the end users, particularly food companies because they're working on the margin as it's related both to the cost of of the raw commodity into their food item? It's generally a very small cost, which means it's on the margin for them. How they manage that risk because it it's just a different leverage point, I think. I mean, you would think they're looking for the lowest price, but, really, they're looking for a consistent price, and that's low. It's it's just a different way of looking, and and I'm sure you see that from your perspective.
Arlan Suderman: 12:39Yeah. It's all about margins, and they're looking at it from a business perspective just as the farmer should be looking at it from a business perspective. What's our margin? And they may not like the price, but they know what they can't afford the price to be. And same thing, the mar farmer may not like the price, but he knows what he cannot afford the price to be in order to stay in business.
Arlan Suderman: 12:59And so when you look at our end users, they're everything from feedlots to ethanol producers to the popular restaurant you like to go to on Friday night. If it's a major chain, they're trying to mitigate what their risk is all the way from the beef that they serve to the pork they serve to even including the cheese and the packaging, the plastics and everything. We help rip help them lock in their margins so they can stay in business and and be in business a year from now.
Todd Gleason: 13:30Do you also work with them on things like aluminum and glass and such? Yeah. So so I'd I'd you have to forgive me because aluminum is a big deal on on the tariff side, and it makes a huge difference for the for for the beverage companies, which makes a huge difference for corn producers because that could cut into the margin that they're willing to pay for high fructose corn syrup.
Arlan Suderman: 13:54Yeah. It's all about margins, and they're looking at everything in combination and what they can afford to pay for the commodities that they're that they're purchasing and the food commodities as well as packaging commodities. Every piece of that, we work with them on that to help make sure that they can stay in business.
Todd Gleason: 14:11Alright. So let's get back to the things at hand. One more thing for you because I didn't ask. How should producers and I like this idea of managing it on the margin. I mean, knowing what price I can't take.
Todd Gleason: 14:26How do you convince producers to know what price they can't take and to make a sale at a price that they maybe should or can take?
Arlan Suderman: 14:39Yeah. I got I got my start in this by working individually with farmers and what are their cash flow needs or other expenses. Farmers hate that part of it. And so it's awfully hard sometimes to get them to pull the numbers together and push the pencil on that, but you have to know what your breakeven is. And that means separating out your fixed costs from your variable costs.
Arlan Suderman: 15:02Your fixed costs, your land costs, you're going to pay anyway. But your variable costs are the costs of putting in that crop and harvesting it. And if you can exceed that, then you're going to go ahead and put the crop in. A lot of times farmers will put the crop in anyway because they're eternal optimists. They always believe that it's going to happen.
Arlan Suderman: 15:19That's what gets them through the hard times. But you have to know what those numbers are so you can recognize, okay, this is a value that is going to cover my variable costs and is going to keep me in business for another year. And then hopefully you can cover your fixed costs as well so you can grow the equity in your operation and have some money left over for the family as well to have some have some enjoyable time at the lake, hopefully.
Todd Gleason: 15:44Numbers that they can get help out with by simply looking possibly at their schedule f if they fill those out because the numbers come from there, or they can go to land grants and search out the crop budgets from the FarmDoc team. If you do that, you'll find it. And it's now listed that the crop budget is for the average cash rent. Yes. And so if you own land, it's a little different, but the average the crop budgets include that number.
Todd Gleason: 16:08The land numb land charge number is a cash rent charge in the state, and other states do it the same way. You, I know, when you sat down, Naomi, are filling out paperwork with farmers to try to figure out these crop budgets and what what their numbers really are. I don't know whether you do that every year, but I'm sure that you and and Jim also look at those numbers and try to talk your producers through, okay. This is we have to have something about breakeven. This is where we can't be.
Todd Gleason: 16:36How do we manage that?
Naomi Blohm: 16:37Yeah. Absolutely. It's one of the things that you have to start your marketing year with annually, of course, as a as a producer and double check-in on that a few times a year and and just be I think the hardest thing for farmers is to continue to try to, on a daily basis, put your business cap mindset on. You know, you're so distracted with so many moving parts to your farm, but at the end of the day, you are a business. And I I just I really appreciate Arlen's insight with that just to to remind producers that, you know, you know, you can love agriculture.
Naomi Blohm: 17:10You can love American agriculture. You can love being out working in the field and working with the livestock. But at the end of the day, you are a business, and and that it just can't be ignored.
Jim McCormick: 17:20They said it best. I mean, you really know know to know your breakevens, you also need to you know, a lot of people run here this time of year, and then they tend to walk away from it. You gotta recalibrate. This year is a different year. A lot of people had rust for the first time.
Jim McCormick: 17:34They had to spray multiple times, so it changed their budget. The other thing that we always tell clients to do is as you're running that budget, we use our app to essentially adjust for the yield. Because if your yield starts moving better, potentially, that's gonna adjust your budget. Also, way we look at it, Todd, is when you do sales. Because if you sell some bushels above breakeven, even though the price goes lower, you may be able to sell some bushels even lower than what you feel you comfortably could.
Jim McCormick: 18:00But because you sold some higher, your breakevens are still better, and you can go ahead and market it. But it's something you've gotta do year round. No one likes to do it. No one likes to do accounting year round, especially when the budgets are negative like they've been in the last couple of years, but it's very crucial if you wanna stay farming in the next decade. It's about dollars per acre
Todd Gleason: 18:16as opposed to yield per acre.
Jim McCormick: 18:19100%. You gotta you know, you're you've gotta get it down to dollars per acre, and, you know, you gotta farm for profit. Too many farmers swing for the fences. They remember the 2012 drought where they made a lot of money. They remember the move here recently because of the Ukrainian war.
Jim McCormick: 18:35The goal is to be profitable. Farming is the one group I find that they tend to always swing for the fences. Like, Arlen was talking, a lot of the people they deal with, they're looking at margins making five, ten, 15% maybe a good margin. The farmer wants to just always try to swing for the fences. And sometimes in the uncertain times like we have right now, the China uncertainty is huge.
Jim McCormick: 18:56The yield uncertainty is huge. What looks profitable today could be absolutely break you know, below breakeven tomorrow on one tweet. So you've gotta know where your breakevens are and execute when you have that opportunity.
Todd Gleason: 19:07So have the spreadsheet set up, update the numbers as you develop them, yields change, pop those in. When you add a fungicide application, drop that in as well. They can put all those numbers in for the crop that they already have and have and have a hard baseline still yet that they know in which to market. Going forward, for new crop, they have to guess at many of them, not all of them, and then they have to come up with some targets. That's where you help them out for new crop sales.
Jim McCormick: 19:36Well, that's where you wanna try to come in. You wanna keep their breakevens. And then, you know, our our viewpoint coming into this year, you wanna be very flexible. That's where the market comes in. You can use options out of Florida, but they'll actually commit you to anything.
Jim McCormick: 19:48You may wanna go ahead and do some cash sales, which you may say, hey. Look. I wanna reown some grain. I'm encouraging guys if they do cash sales that are profitable, you wanna own options. Because we talked about The US balance sheet.
Jim McCormick: 19:58It is very ugly. But the fact is the world balance sheet for the corn is actually tightening up. It's some of the tightest it's been in ten years. So if there is a stumble in The US or if there is a stumble in South America's frantic crop, you're gonna change that dynamic. So you need to be able to play it both ways.
Jim McCormick: 20:13You need to defend your profitability, but you also wanna be able to take advantage of a potential move if it would show so happen.
Todd Gleason: 20:20New crop advice.
Naomi Blohm: 20:22Be mindful of two potential seasonal rallies that can occur, during the year. So the first one I wanna remind producers of for, like, December corn, November beans for next year, There can be a seasonal tendency for a price rally mid January to mid February. So so be ready to contemplate, you know, should should you be pulling the trigger on new crop sales already in just in two months from now. Also, the next time, of course, would be the summer rally, which is no longer summer. It used to be like Mother's Day to Father's Day, and now it's even starting to be more like April.
Naomi Blohm: 20:55So you've gotta just again, this is where it comes down to being aware of cost of production, being aware of of revenue, being aware of of pulling the trigger and having the discipline, having the courage to make the cash sales, and then potentially using other hedging tools as needed to fill in the gaps.
Arlan Suderman: 21:13I've talked a lot about the the taking prices that we don't want and everything, but I do wanna also include some of those because we've heard from, Naomi and Jim about, having some flexibility. We know that Russia probably will reduce winter wheat acres by 6% this year. So that means a smaller crop next year potentially. China, 20% of their winter wheat crop is not planted yet, and we're in late November because of adverse weather there. They have a year supply of reserves, but that's something that keeps them makes them uncomfortable is eating into those reserves.
Arlan Suderman: 21:48Those are that's potential business that could be there. And finally, Black Sea, we're probably seeing the most risk towards shipping right now that we've seen since the war started. And so we're seeing a lot of escalation of that war, which could could being in quote marks, start to impact shipping and freight rates coming out of the Black Sea, which could be a positive for both wheat and corn. So those are things that we need to keep our eyes on to the upside.
Todd Gleason: 22:16Last week was the first time I've heard about them bombing, for instance, support again on the Black Sea. I think this one must have been a little further up the the river, but not right on the right on the sea itself. But still, they're getting more aggressive and in Kyiv as well.
Arlan Suderman: 22:33Exactly right. And the big port that Ukraine hit had the oil energy infrastructure there. Some of their grain facilities got debris and shrapnel from it. The big question is at what point do they start going directly after ships? Hasn't happened yet.
Arlan Suderman: 22:50The odds of that are still low, but that risk is still there. And if that were were to happen, then we could totally change the dynamics of this market.
Todd Gleason: 22:59And it it only has to be the perception that they're going to go after the trade
Arlan Suderman: 23:02ships, which is what happened early on. And insurers would not insure a ship, so they would not sail into the ports along Ukraine's Southern Coast and the Black Sea. So we'll have to watch that. What are the other things that you're worried about, Arlen, on the global front related to policies and geopolitics? I think number one is rare earth minerals and magnets.
Arlan Suderman: 23:28China controls 90% of them. President Trump is trying to change that, but that takes time depending on the mineral, one to three years minimum. And so right now, we're seeing that China suspended their restrictions to The United States. They have not done so for Europe. Europe is negotiating it.
Arlan Suderman: 23:46That is really heating up. But they say they suspended it, but they're putting in a licensing process that still keeps it from going to military assets and any company that may be tied. So a lot of our auto and aircraft companies also have a military contract. So that can curtail production, that curtails their ability to make defense weapons. So we could see Trump just pull the plug and say, 100% tariffs at any point once again because it's a national security issue, and, that could cause all this to fall apart at any point.
Arlan Suderman: 24:18Let's turn
Todd Gleason: 24:19our attention to the things that are directly related to that, to the farmers, the 12,000,000 metric tons for this year for soybean sales, 25, 25, and 25 for the following three years. How concerned does the conversation that we just heard from from Arlen make you about the 12,000,000 metric tons over the following years? Well,
Jim McCormick: 24:43the that's the start of the following years. I personally think that was just a throw in as part of the deal. I mean, the fact of the matter is even this mineral deal, if they can execute, it was only a one year deal. Why did you do the one year deal for 12, but they the you know, for the minerals, but you waited a four year deal for the grains? That's just that's illogical for how China thinks.
Jim McCormick: 25:03So I I don't I'm not even thinking they're gonna do the 25. I my fear is it'll fall apart. It'll get renegotiated. As for the 12, they're starting to buy. I think they got, what, 12% bought so far.
Jim McCormick: 25:15It's a good sign. But to be quite honest, this could fall apart tomorrow, and none of it's been shipped. So I think you've gotta take advantage of this while you can and mitigate the risk because there is a lot of China premium in the market, I believe.
Todd Gleason: 25:28Did any of you see the the small news report that took place earlier in the week as it's related to RINs and the soybean oil and using it as renewable diesel, as as well as that which might come in from other countries where they had thought about doing that at 50% rent, and and now they're saying, well, maybe we'll push that off, and it'll be a 100% rent, which would mean those cooking oil would continue to come into The United States.
Jim McCormick: 25:57The real question, Todd, is well, you're talking about the rents. Is that is it a real policy change, or are they just floating a trial balloon to see what kind of pushback they're gonna get from the farm group because you they're they're talking about essentially not limiting the RIN credits like they were for two years. The oil industry likes it. The farm lobby doesn't like it, but the farm lobby likes the fact that they've got China buying beans. And I don't like I said, this is not this is an unnamed source reporting to a news agency, and that is a classic Washington.
Jim McCormick: 26:34Put up a trial balloon, see how the market reacts, and if it reacts negatively and the farm group is reacting negatively, you may you may hear never hear anything else about it.
Todd Gleason: 26:44Let's get a final word now from each of you. Naomi Bloom at total farm marketing dot com out of West Bend, Wisconsin. What's your final word for the day?
Naomi Blohm: 26:53I think my final word would be, keep things realistic. Keep your vision realistic on price expectations because at this point, it would I feel take it just a dramatic weather issue on the negative side to see really dramatic higher grain prices this winter. And I also am mindful that the current administration is really trying to do what it can to keep the value of food prices potentially lower as they have been adamant about with the beef market. So it makes me question if if they would be an opportunity to have extremely high grain prices or not. So, while I don't want to be the naysayer, I want to keep things a little bit realistic to say that it it may be a struggle to see soybean prices in the bigger picture go above 12 and wheat prices in Chicago to go above 6 or corn prices to go above 5.
Naomi Blohm: 27:45We we may be in that lower trough of production or lower trough of prices on sufficient production.
Todd Gleason: 27:53Arlen Suderman from Stonax here in Kansas City. Your final word?
Arlan Suderman: 27:57Watch the soybean crush numbers. They've been impressive. NOPA, National Oilseed Process Association accounts for around 95% of all crushed. And we've had two months worth of data now for the new marketing year. Each month, was about 20,000,000 bushels above the previous year, showing that our capacity has grown by more than expected and USDA's target is probably too low.
Arlan Suderman: 28:20So when you look at that, we can offset some lost China business. So if China buys anywhere close to 10,000,000 metric tons, we should be okay. And then we'll look to this next year's weather and whether we have any type of weather story in the next growing season. Crush is going to be strong, but we still need China. We need China to come through.
Todd Gleason: 28:43And Jim McCormick from agmarket.net.
Jim McCormick: 28:46Well, we're moving into a holiday season that tends to be a little bit quiet, but we you know, the government was shut down, Todd. We're gonna be playing catch up on the CFTC data. We're gonna be playing catch up on the export data. There could be surprises in there. The one thing I like to point out to clients, the m two money supply, it is at all time highs.
Jim McCormick: 29:04There is people looking to place money certain ways. We've seen in certain areas, we've seen a lot of volatility in the metal market. We've seen a lot of volatility in stock market. If you get a little bit of inflation vibe into agriculture, I'm gonna argue corn, beans, or corn and wheat, especially but even beans compared to some of these other assets are relatively cheap. So if you get the right storyline, we could get it could get really interesting in 2026 if, that money comes into our, grain pits.
Todd Gleason: 29:31Commodity Week is a production of Illinois Public Media. It's public radio for the farming world. Our panelists today include Naomi Bloem, Jim McCormick, and Arlen Suderman on University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Find us online at willag.0rg.