Mark's Market Talk for December 15, 2025

Some weeks are better than others, last week was not one of the better weeks when it came to the grain markets. We had excellent corn export sales last week and yet we still ended the week down 4 cents. It appears the traders are willing to let things slide until the January crop report which will have an updated yield number. The talk all fall has been that they have the national yield too high since the I states came up short due to weather and disease issues. Granted areas in Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Nebraska had excellent yields. But was it enough to overcome the rust problems that many of us suffered? It appears there are fewer ground piles than normal and that normally means harvest wasn’t as good as it could have been. Processors have been using hot bids to attract needed bushels which leads you to believe that a lot of corn is still behind locked doors. Farmers in general are not flush with cash and sooner or later this corn will need to head to town. Beans had another terrible week as they lost 28 cents. This happened even though we saw some good export numbers led by Chinese buying. However, they are still behind in taking the beans they agreed to. This past week the discussion was what the true deadline is for the Chinese to have this year’s purchases done. We were told by February, China thinks they have until early this fall. There is no doubt that had farmers from both countries been involved in the trade talks, this whole deal would have come out better. The administration has been touting the 12 billion dollars of bridge payments as being a huge help to farmers. If you do the math, it might be 30 to 50 dollars an acre. Any money will be appreciated, but this will not be enough to offer sizable help to most producers. We need to see lower input costs that align better with the low commodity prices we have. The general public does not understand that this money will not stay in the farmers’ hands. It will flow right to the places where they are buying their fertilizer, seed, and chemicals.