Mark's Market Talk for November 24, 2025

In the old days we would say we have a 3-day trade week ahead of us with Thanksgiving on Thursday, and the day after on Friday. Now with computer trading Friday may act like a normal trade day. Traders can trade from home, which allows them to choose if they participate on Friday. This may add to the volitivity should the rest of the world wants to get involved. Therefore, we can't take anything for granted this week. We ended last week with corn 5 cents lower while beans were steady for the week. China did step in and buy some beans, but they have a long way to go if they are serious about buying what our government said they heard in the trade discussions. The timeline is very short as Brazil will have new crop beans available in late January. Suddenly their price is a dollar lower than the US. They want to make it very difficult for China to buy from us, even with the reduced tariffs. We taught many of the producers in South America how to raise beans and now China is providing the capital needed to improve their infrastructure so Brazil can get their beans to an ocean port timely. So far, the planting season is progressing nicely in SA, not what we want to hear. The corn market turned stale last week. We are still the lowest priced in the world and exports remain good. However, domestic usage has struggled as livestock numbers are reduced. We are also still digesting the average corn yield number that USDA put out in their November WASDE report. Many feel they overstated the yield, which will not be updated until the January report. If they do adjust the yield down, they will probably lower the domestic usage by a similar amount so in the end not much changes.