CORN

• Corn futures are starting the week unchanged to slightly higher, tracking gains in the wheat market and attempting to build on last week’s strong finish.
• Corn has been relatively insulated from the market fallout triggered by the Trump administration’s higher-than-expected tariffs. With Mexico — corn’s largest export destination — exempt from the new measures and China largely absent from recent U.S. corn purchases, the immediate impact on corn trade flows appears limited. This has helped the corn market hold up better than soybeans amid broader trade uncertainty.
• Excessive rainfall leading to flooding along the Ohio River Valley has delayed field work over the last week. The outlook for the next ten days looks promising however with warmer and drier than normal conditions forecast for much of the southern Corn Belt.

SOYBEANS

• Soybean futures are higher to start the week, clawing back some of last week’s sharp losses despite lingering concerns over tariffs.
• On Friday, China announced it would match the U.S. tariff of 34%, effectively raising the total tariff on U.S. soybeans to 49%. While the impact on old-crop soybeans is expected to be minimal — given that export sales are already at 93% of the USDA’s current estimate — the new-crop export program is likely to take a hit.
• Palm oil prices dropped to a 10-week low on Monday as the market was weighed down by a sharp decline in crude oil prices. The weakness in related vegetable oils added to the pressure — China’s Dalian exchange saw bean oil futures fall nearly 4%, while Dalian palm oil dropped closer to 6%. The selloff reflects broader macroeconomic concerns and waning demand signals across the global veg oil complex.

WHEAT

• Wheat futures are higher to start the week as weather-related uncertainty injects fresh volatility into the market. Concerns over excessive moisture in some regions and deepening drought in others are keeping traders on edge.
• Massive weekend flooding likely caused significant damage to soft red winter (SRW) wheat across the Delta and southern Midwest, as widespread heavy rains stretched from Texas through Arkansas and into the Ohio Valley. The full extent of the impact will become clearer as fields begin to dry and assessments can be made in the coming days.
• The forecast through the end of the month calls for warmer and drier conditions across much of the Southern Plains, which is likely to exacerbate the ongoing drought in hard red winter (HRW) wheat regions. With soil moisture already limited in key areas like western Kansas and the Texas Panhandle, crop stress is expected to increase.
• Wheat appears to be the least impacted grain market amid the ongoing tariff tensions. With Mexico and Canada exempt from the latest round of U.S. tariffs — and China having made no U.S. wheat purchases this year — the export outlook remains relatively stable. Additionally, the recent sharp decline in the U.S. dollar has provided key support, making U.S. wheat more competitive on the global market.

Author

Keegan Madigan