TFM Daily Market Summary 01-17-2025

The CME and Total Farm Marketing offices will be closed Monday, January 20, in observance of Martin Luther King Jr Day.

 

CORN HIGHLIGHTS:

  • The corn market closed the week with strong gains as buyers returned. Concerns over Argentina’s weather and a technical breakout helped drive money flow into the front-end of the market.
  • Wet weather is expected to return to Argentina’s dry areas, but long-range forecasts turn drier by Friday. These concerns reintroduced weather premiums into the market.
  • The Buenos Aires Grain Exchange rated the corn crop at 39% good-to-excellent, down from 42% last week, with 14% rated poor, up from 9%. Adverse weather continues to pressure crop conditions.
  • Corn futures saw significant technical improvement, breaking through resistance from earlier price highs. This sets the stage for potential follow-through when trading resumes next week.
  • Managed funds are steadily amassing a substantial long position in the corn market. As of January 7, hedge funds held a net long of 253,346 contracts, with expectations for further growth following last Friday’s bullish USDA report.

SOYBEAN HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Soybeans ended the day significantly higher, breaking three days of consecutively lower closes and gaining back nearly all of yesterday’s losses. New weather forecasts today saw a drier pattern in Argentina and southern Brazil which spurred fund buying. Both soybean meal and oil ended the day higher as well.
  • Estimates for Brazilian soybean production has been increased by Agroconsult to 172.4 mmt which would be an 11% increase from last season. This compares with the USDA at 169 mmt and CONAB at 166 mmt.
  • While yesterday’s export sales for soybeans were within the average trade guess, some Chinese buyers have reportedly switched to cheaper Brazilian soybeans ahead of President Trump’s inauguration on Monday. With the sharp increase in the value of the dollar over the past few months combined with the weakened real, Brazilian soy offers are much more competitive.
  • While Argentina’s dry streak is expected to be broken within the next few days, some damage has already been to the crop with the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange lowering good to excellent ratings by 13 points. Only 8% of the crop is pod filling at this point.

WHEAT HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Despite the strength of corn and soybeans today, not much of it spilled over into wheat. Chicago contracts gained about a penny, while Kansas City was mixed to lower, and Minneapolis posted small gains. The US Dollar Index was on the rise again today, adding to pressure.
  • Also offering weakness to the US wheat market are the new crop supplies coming out of Argentina and Australia, which are both said to be cheaper than US offers. Thailand reportedly purchased 195,000 mt of feed wheat with most of that coming from Australia and a little bit from the US. Furthermore, Russian FOB values are said to have declined as well.
  • On a bullish note, Russia’s cap to wheat exports has led SovEcon to project Russian exports at 43.7 mmt, falling below the USDA’s estimate of 46 mmt. In related news, Russia’s ag ministry is said to have raised the wheat export tax by 10.7% to 4,699.60 Rubles per mt through January 27.
  • According to the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange, Argentina’s wheat harvest is 100% complete as of January 16. Their production estimate remains steady at 18.6 mmt, compared with a 15.1 mmt crop last year.
  • The International Grains Council has reduced their estimate of world grain stockpiles for the 24/25 season to 573 mmt. This compares to 576 mmt in the November estimate. However, this reduction is primarily for corn and barley. In fact, wheat stocks are expected to increase to 265 mmt vs 263 mmt previously.

DAIRY HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Class III futures were mostly higher with only the May and December contracts seeing small losses of 8 and 2 cents respectively.
  • Class III products were both unchanged during Friday’s spot trade session. Spot cheese remains at $1.89/lb while whey stays put at $0.7375/lb.
  • Class IV milk was pressured lower again during the session with losses ranging from 2-29 cents.
  • Spot butter closed out a poor week half a cent lower to $2.53/lb. Butter now ends the week down 7 cents going into the long weekend. Powder on the other hand gained half a penny to trade at $1.3725/lb.

 

Total Farm Marketing and TFM refer to Stewart-Peterson Group Inc., Stewart-Peterson Inc., and SP Risk Services LLC. Stewart-Peterson Group Inc. is registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as an introducing broker and is a member of the National Futures Association. Stewart-Peterson Inc. is a publishing company. SP Risk Services LLC is an insurance agency. A customer may have relationships with all three companies. TFM Market Updates is a service of Stewart-Peterson Inc. Futures and options trading involve significant risk of loss and may not be suitable for everyone. Therefore, carefully consider whether such trading is suitable for you in light of your financial condition.

Author

Brandon Doherty

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