Mark's Market Talk for March 10, 2025

We saw lots of movement in the grain markets last week, but when it was done corn and beans were both steady on the week. Last Friday’s COT report showed that as of last Tuesday the funds had reduced their longs in the corn market down to 220,000 contracts. The number was probably down below 200,000 on Friday which meant they had liquidated over 150,000 corn contracts in less than 3 weeks. That easily explains why we saw a 50 cent drop in prices during that time. We ended the week on a up note for corn after it was announced there would be a 30-day reprieve on tariffs to Canada and Mexico. The funds were also sellers of bean futures as the report showed them now short 35,000, while they were at even a couple of weeks earlier. The demand for US beans has waned lately as Brazil continues to undercut us on price. The current world stocks are more than amble and could become troublesome if we raise an average to better crop. The Midwest has seen some good rain events in the past couple of weeks which has tempered the drought talk for the time being. Most areas appear to have enough moisture to get the crops out of the ground and growing putting the real need for rain into the May early June timeframe. Of course, if you follow the “fog makes rain 90 days later” theory, the rains will start later in March and linger into April which may delay planting. As we do get nearer to planting it will become even more important to watch not only the markets, but also the conditions that make the markets move. This would include weather, tariffs, world unrest, plus many other factors. It will be sort of like watching a good poker match. The seasoned players all have their own betting system where they play the hands dealt to them in certain ways. Rarely do you see the eventual winner going all in, they normally play each hand differently knowing that to be successful they need to win more hands than they lose. If they play their cards right, they stand a chance to be in the game at the end. Usually, the player that goes all in has been forced into a corner and ends up in a do or die situation. The object in grain marketing is to avoid being the guy that must go all in.