Mark's Market Talk for February 17, 2025

We saw more up and down trade last week in the commodity markets. Corn ended the week 9 cents higher while beans were 13 cents lower. Corn was helped by a higher wheat market that was reacting to cold weather in both the US and Russia. Wheat is no different than corn or beans, you can lose the crop multiple times prior to harvest, traders do want to miss the time the crop is lost. An offset story late last week was news from some media folks that Trump and Putin are working to end the war in Ukraine. If this happens it may not have an immediate effect on our markets, but in time as they get their infrastructure back together, they will get back into the export business. This will not happen overnight, but it will happen eventually. Corn and wheat are their major crops. Beans continue to be pressured by a faster moving South American harvest. Brazil is pricing March delivered beans more than 1.00 below us. That is tough to compete with and at some point, either their price will come up, or the US price will need to come down. We continue to hear tariff talk almost daily. Most of the proposed tariffs have been delayed giving our trading partners time to negotiate with the Trump team. If you remember back a couple of weeks Columbia refused to take some of their people back that had been in our country illegally. President Trump threatened to impose several tariffs immediately. Columbia quickly relented and allowed the people to deplane, and the tariffs were not levied. Last Friday there was an announced sale of 4 million bushels of corn to Columbia. Let’s hope the disputes with other countries can be settled right away and our agricultural trade continues without large tariffs.