Mark's Market Talk for May 12, 2025

Last week was tough on the grain markets once again. July corn was 19 cents lower while the December contract was 9 cents lower. July beans closed 6 cents lower while the November contract was even.  Old corn has struggled lately as current demand has softened. We did have a couple of good corn sales to Mexico last week, but a lot of it was for next year delivery. Cheap crude oil is not helping the ethanol market, however Thursday’s announcement on a trade agreement with Great Britain could give us some support. We export lots of ethanol to them, and this agreement should keep it moving to them. There was a trade meeting between the US and China scheduled for last weekend. There was a lot of hope that some good results came out of this. By the time you read this you will know if anything positive happened. This week’s big mover could be the USDA reports out Monday. There will be a stocks number along with the first look into the next marketing year’s numbers. They will show a projected carryout number for both 25 and 26. The planting season is not complete so the new crop numbers will be projections at this point. It appears the trade has factored in a large corn harvest along with an average or slightly lower bean crop. We have a lot of time between now and harvest for several factors to affect this year’s crops. We will update the numbers next week.