Jun 30 | Closing Market Report
From the land grant university in Urbana Champaign, Illinois. This is the closing market report. It is June 2025. It's USDA report day. Coming up, we'll take up this morning's reports with then
Todd Gleason:we'll turn our attention to the weather forecast with there. And then we'll turn our attention to the weather forecast with Mark Russo of Everstream Analytics on this Monday edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world, our final day of the fiscal year. If you can make a donation today at willgive.org or (217) 244-9455, that would be fantastic. By the end of the day, we need to have everything in the bank that we will be using starting tomorrow, July 1 for our programming. Again, that's online at willgive.org or at (217) 244-9455.
Todd Gleason:And be sure to tell them or to put into the comments section in support of agriculture.
Josh Linville:Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason:Agricultural economist from the U of I, Joe Jansen, a member of the FarmDoc team, now joins us to discuss the Monday USDA reports. Both acreage and grain stocks were released today. Thank you, Joe, for being with us. Start out with the numbers broadly. Did they change anything?
Todd Gleason:What do they mean, to the farmer producer?
Joe Janzen:Yeah. I think we'd probably look at, you know, maybe four big numbers, two for corn and two for soybeans. The the first being the acreage numbers and maybe the second being the the grain stocks numbers. The two numbers on acreage were 95,200,000 acres of corn and 83,400,000 acres of soybeans. And those are down just skosh from where they were in the March perspective plantings report, but basically right in line with with everyone's expectations.
Joe Janzen:We're gonna see more corn acres harvested this year in The United States than we did a year ago, less soybean acres, those, you know, roughly offsetting changes, but not much in terms of news, nothing that's really moving the market in any significant way given that these those acreage numbers were right in line with expectations.
Todd Gleason:And the grain stocks figures?
Joe Janzen:Yeah. So USDA came out with its estimates of the the grain stocks as of June 1. We saw the the corn stocks number come in at about 4,650,000,000 bushels, 4.64. That's maybe down a little bit from a year ago and kind of roughly in line with the relatively strong pace of use that we've seen for US corn this year. That corn stocks number was right in line with expectations.
Joe Janzen:Sort of puts us, you know, right where we think we need to be if we're if USDA is in fact right that we're gonna maybe have slightly lower corn ending stocks as of September 1, the end of the corn marketing year this year. On the soybean side, I think this is maybe just kind of slightly bearish. The USDA's, soybean stocks estimate was just over 1,000,000,000 bushels. That's a little bit above what the trade was expecting, you know, a little bit more than we've seen for the last few years. But overall, you know, given the fact that we are gonna see lower soybean acres, it doesn't sort of change the supply and demand picture for beans all that much.
Todd Gleason:Alright. So let's take up corn from your perspective at this point. Last week, both the July and the December contracts made new contract lows. Can those be as early as this during the season, or do you think there's much more to go?
Joe Janzen:To go on the to the downside? I mean, I think that's gonna have to be I mean, part of what we're looking at is sort of, you know, it it it is a weather market now. We are seeing, you know, some signs of dryness in different parts of the Corn Belt. I mean, we've had adequate moisture up until this point. I think that's really kind of where a lot of that pessimism was was coming from last week was the fact that, you know, weather in most parts of the Corn Belt, not everywhere, but on the whole has been relatively conducive to corn production.
Joe Janzen:I think we we may see some, you know, weather driven action in the next month, and that may be a reason to get back to something closer to a four forty corn number. But we've got us we've probably got to see it from the weather side because, you know, you've got that South American harvest that's coming in now. That's gonna keep the the global supply pipeline pretty full for the next little while. So it's it's gotta be a US weather story. There's the possibility of that happening, but heretofore, it hasn't come to pass.
Todd Gleason:Do you think today's reports change the season's average cash price for new crop corn and soybeans for the upcoming WASDE report or in your own supply and demand tables going forward, or did they just hold the status quo?
Joe Janzen:I think it's a if this is a status quo report. I mean, USDA has their season average price forecast, I think, at $4.20 for new crop corn. That number seems, you know, about in line with what we would expect given, you know, the dramatic surge in US supply that we are gonna see because there are gonna be so many more acres of corn that nothing to sort of meaningfully change what that number looks like.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. And at $10.25 for soybeans, that's about in line as well?
Joe Janzen:Roughly in line. I mean, that's right where we're at on the board today. We did see the soybean market kind of dip a little bit lower on the release of the report, and it's kind of held that sort of slight decline in price. So we're right in around that 4.25 mark right now as I'm speaking. And that seems to be, you know, again, roughly in line with what the supply and demand picture looks like at this point in the year.
Todd Gleason:So I know that you have written often in the last couple of years about grain marketing and what his history tells us about when it should be done. Farmers have not mostly followed the we need to market some in, their earlier part of the year or more more than they have in the past.
Joe Janzen:Well, and and the last few weeks have not been particularly motivating, let's say, know, given what's happened to prices in the last week or so. I I I I fully recognize that.
Todd Gleason:Right. So how do you how do you get out of it is the question.
Joe Janzen:Yeah. I mean, we the the the good news is there's lots of time. You know, we're thinking about the Grain Marketing Project as maybe, you know, a year and a half to, like, twenty to twenty four month prior. It's really sort of, you know, the year leading up to harvest and the year that follows. So there's lots of time left, and I think you want to take advantage of opportunities.
Joe Janzen:You wanna have some amount of crop priced prior to harvest. If you hadn't done that, some of that already in May and June, you want to sort of start to think about what what is the number that's going to get me to sell some amount of grain before we get to, say, September 1. And if that's, you know, four forty, then putting in target orders or some kind of commitment device to get you to sell when we get to that price level and revisiting that plan as we move through the summer, I think, an important part of any farmer's grain strategy.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. And by April, you mean 12/04/1940 futures, which is a cash price in that $4 range probably.
Joe Janzen:So That that's exactly right.
Todd Gleason:Anything else before I let you go?
Joe Janzen:No. I think we just we keep wait wait and see on the weather, and think about, you know, what what constitutes sort of a price that we wanna that we wanna move some grain. I will say the one other good thing that came out of the report is we did see, you know, significant changes in on farm grain stocks, suggesting that farmers were moving a lot of corn in the last three months from that March 1 to June 1 time window that USDA between the last two sort of USDA stocks estimates. And I view that as like a good sign that we're sort of not bringing an old crop marketing problem into this what looks to be like a lower price environment for the 2526 crop.
Todd Gleason:Thank you much, Joe. We appreciate it. We'll look for your, pinnings on the PharmDoc Daily website.
Joe Janzen:Thanks a lot, Todd.
Todd Gleason:That's Joe Jansen. He's an agricultural economist here on the Urbana Champaign campus of the University of Illinois with an update of the USDA figures and how he sees them playing into the marketplace over time, as he said, kind of status quo. And that's what happened in Chicago as we rounded out the day. The settlement prices have finished the nearby July corn three higher. September at $4.00 9 and a quarter, it was down two and a quarter, and December at $4.25 and a half, a penny and a half lower.
Todd Gleason:July beans at $10.24 and a quarter, down 3 and a half cents. November at $10.27, up two and a quarter for the day. July, bean meal futures at $2.71 30, up 21¢. The bean oil, 6¢ higher at $52.51. Wheat futures in the July up four at $5.28 and 3 quarters and the December at $5.63 lower for the day.
Todd Gleason:The hard red July at $5.00 6 down a dime. December there, rather September there at five twenty six and three quarters down 7¢ for the afternoon. Live cattle futures in Chicago finished at $2.13 87 and a half, up 57 and a half cents. Feeders up $2.77 and a half cents at $310.67 and a half, and lean hogs for a 100 pounds at a $107.50 down $2.77 and a half cents. Gasoline on the wholesale price just about unchanged.
Todd Gleason:It's a $2.06 and 9 tenths of a cent per gallon, and the wholesale price of crude oil at $64.97 a barrel, down 55¢. Here to discuss this morning's release of the USDA figures, grain stocks, and acreage numbers, and the impact they had in Chicago is Kurt Kimmel from AgMarket dot net. Hello, Kurt. Thank you for being with us for the day.
Curt Kimmel:Well, glad to be here, Todd.
Todd Gleason:Tell me about, what you saw as the numbers came out and if the trade did anything strange at that point and then how it settled back into the marketplace.
Curt Kimmel:Yeah. It was noneventful. Boy, this is one of the quietest reports we've seen quite some time. Corn stocks, 4.644 is just about 3,000,000 bushels above the average trade estimates, so right on target. It's about 350,000,000 bushels less than a year ago, so we got a little tighter stocks than a year ago.
Curt Kimmel:When you look at the corn stocks in general, the on farm versus it was 2.5, off farm at the elevator, 2,000,000,000 bushels. So little less on farm, a little bit more in the elevator this year. And it's gonna tell me there's probably gonna be some phone calls. Do you wanna pay an an additional in charge here as we move forward here if those bushels aren't aren't moved here between now and then? Bean stocks, just a little over a billion bushels, 28,000,000 bushels more than expected, a little higher than a year ago by about 38,000,000.
Curt Kimmel:Same type of story on the beans on farm, 411,000,000 less than a year ago. The off farm is 595, a little bit more than a year ago. So as we approach the end of the marketing year, you know, get the stuff in the elevator is gonna be penciled out whether or not you wanna hang on to it or not. Acreage report, jeez. Yeah.
Curt Kimmel:Fairly close. You know, corn acres, 95.2, about a 140,000,000 less what the trade was looking for on corn. Bean acreage, 83.38, 275,000 acres less what the trade was looking for, but, you know, within the range. Confirmation, more more more corn acres, less bean acres. The ag market team, we we feel still there's a few more acres around than what the estimate showed here today.
Curt Kimmel:But when this survey was taken, there's still guys trying to put some corn in the ground. So, you know, I don't think they're gonna do a resurvey, but there was still some acres in question on whether to go ahead and plant or or or switch to beans. So this report's tucked away. Those are the numbers, and the focus now will be weather.
Todd Gleason:Well, turning to that, what do we expect in this afternoon's USDA weekly crop progress conditions report. Anything different there?
Curt Kimmel:Yeah. We'll mainly focus on the state breakdown, see who improved and who eroded a little bit, but the good to excellent category on corn's expected to be about 70% versus 70% last week. Soybeans are expected to be 67 good to excellent versus 66% last week. So as we hover around 70% good to excellent, that sort of signals that the crop is in pretty good condition. Guys are pleasantly surprised with the crop thus far.
Curt Kimmel:Other than that southern third, we're seeing a situation where the crop digs in the ground here, so we'll see how it comes along. The other thing would be progress in the South. When you look at the acreage report, the acreage report today still showed that southern third of the region still putting corn in the ground, still high corn acres, we didn't see a shift there yet. And also too, when we talked about the South on the acreage report today, cotton estimate came in higher than expected. Were seeing a lot of optimism on cotton acres being down.
Curt Kimmel:It came in at 10,100,000 acres. Last year, we were at 11.1, so just down 1,000,000 acres. It came in about 300, 400,000 more acres than what the trade is looking for there, Todd.
Todd Gleason:So when you go ahead and and take a look at all these numbers at this point and think about how much producers have yet to market, and you suggested there would be old crop that they might need to have an in charge on it, what should farmers think about over this next month as it's related to old and new crop sales, and then going into the harvest, particularly as it's related to those bushels that need to go across the scale?
Curt Kimmel:Yeah. That's a tough one. Nobody wants to really look at it here as as this the market has really failed to react to some news to the upside. Well, old crop is gone. We've pretty well cleaned out the bin on corn, replaced a little bit with some calls.
Curt Kimmel:The July calls expired worthless. We've got some other calls on in case we get a rally here or some strength, but second half of the growing season to try to catch up with that. But hanging on to the cash grain, you're just gonna have to watch your local or nearby cash bids. There could be some opportunities of some strength in basis. The risk is downtime or the buyer putting their hand in their pocket looking out their back window, seeing the crop fairly good.
Curt Kimmel:As far as new crop goes, have some price targets above the market to let some go here. The market moves on higher, So we wanna have those orders in place in case something happens in the middle of the night that we can take advantage of some upside.
Todd Gleason:Thank you much.
Curt Kimmel:You bet. Take care.
Todd Gleason:That's Kurt Kimmel. He is with agmarket.net. Here's one quick ag news story for the day. Tensions in The Middle East have raised significant concerns about the price and availability of fertilizers and fertilizer inputs in recent weeks. Josh Linville, vice president of fertilizer for Stonax, has a lot of fertilizer input production shut down during the fighting between Iran and Israel.
Josh Linville:We spent a lot of time talking about The Middle East and its importance to the nitrogen marketplace globally. And this fight between Israel and Iran had a very direct relationship to the urea market. So looking at 2024 numbers, Israel was the third largest exporter in the world for urea. Iran, as a precautionary measure, had to shut down their gas fields, which means you shut down nitrogen production. The flip side, Egypt was number four, and they had to shut theirs down.
Josh Linville:A lot people are like, well, they're far away from the fighting. Why that matter? Well, Egypt relies on Israel for their gas, so they had shut down their nitrogen production. So when all this started to happen and then especially when Iran started talking about closing the Strait Of Hormuz, prices went crazy. You know, we're talking 40% rallies in these markets.
Todd Gleason:And Linville says prices have been elevated. It means that producers could face some tough choices for their fall applications. Let's check the weather forecast now with Mark Russo. He's from Everstream Analytics. Hello, Mark.
Todd Gleason:Thank you for being with us on another warm Monday. These warm moist conditions, a little rainfall have made things really pop across the Midwest. Can you tell me, are there places that you think actually need more rain? I suspect there might be. And if we'll get some in the future or not.
Mark Russo:Well, Todd, again, thanks for having me here today. And as far as the situation here in the Midwest Corn And Soybean Bell, it continues to be in very good shape across most areas. In fact, with June ending today, if we look back over the past several weeks, rainfall has been normal to above normal across much of the Corn Belt, while temperatures have been warmer than normal, although there hasn't been any kind of sustained extreme heat. The only areas that could use a little more moisture, have to go way up into the Far Northwest Belt. Some pockets within Eastern North Dakota, Western Minnesota haven't done as well as the rest of the belt, but very minor dryness there.
Mark Russo:But that's the one area that could use more rain here coming up. And speaking of that, looking ahead here, we see generally favorable weather continuing as we go through this week and even on into next week as well. Number one, there's no heat stress expected during the next few weeks. At least There will be a few warm days here and there, but we don't see any extended heat as we begin to move into the core of pollination during the July. And then also there will continue to be rainfall opportunities with the majority of the belt receiving near normal rainfall totals over the next couple of weeks.
Todd Gleason:So you're telling me the whole of the Corn Belt doesn't look too bad at this point?
Mark Russo:No. It looks really good. It looks really good here looking out through the July.
Todd Gleason:That is highly unusual. What does the second half, in your opinion, look like at the month of July, and have you thought much about August?
Mark Russo:Yeah. For the second half of the the month, we do need to keep an eye. As is always the case, you got to always watch where the ridge of high pressure goes and if there's any indications of it moving back over the Midwest and staying there for a period of time. Right now, there's no real strong indications for that. But with the ridge of high pressure, at least beginning to produce more heat and below normal rainfall in parts of like the plains, especially the Northern Plains and up into Canada, have to watch things the second half of the month as that start to ease closer to the Midwest with time.
Todd Gleason:Any place across the planet that we need to be paying attention to other than Canada? For instance, what's happening in France, parts of Western Europe, and on in in into the Black Sea area.
Mark Russo:Yeah, Europe overall is seeing detrimental weather for summer crop development. June rainfall has been well below normal across much of Western And Southern Europe, and it's been one of the driest June's in the past twenty to thirty years in some of the Romania corn acreage, Italy and France as well. We're now starting to see some heat building into Europe, and another major heat wave is on tap this week before there's some temperature relief next week. And then in terms of rainfall, this week is dry. Next week does offer some minor relief, but with soil moisture basically at decadal lows across much of Europe, the pattern is concerning for summer crop development as we go into July.
Todd Gleason:Now as is always the case when things are really good, for instance, in the safrinha growing regions of Brazil, generally speaking, there are places that say, hey, wait a second. I'm having trouble. I did see a couple of things about rainfall, I think, in Southern Brazil, maybe, and safrinha second crop harvest. What can you tell us?
Mark Russo:Yeah. The past week to ten days, it's been pretty wet and pretty stormy across Southern Brazil, including the safrinha acreage in and around Parana. That now is starting to change. In fact, starting tomorrow, tomorrow is the first full day of dry weather in a long time, and it looks to stay that way for much of the next couple of weeks. So they're going into this drier pattern that will help help to improve harvest activity across the region, has been slowed recently by the rains.
Todd Gleason:Well, we're so glad you're full of really good news for all the growing regions across the planet. Hey. Thank you much, Mark. We'll talk with you again next week. John.
Todd Gleason:That's Mark Russo. He is with Everest Dream Analytics joined us on this Monday edition of the closing market report that comes to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world. It's the final day of our fund drive, and we really don't have a fund drive, but the end of our fiscal year. And by the time we get to midnight tonight, we'll need everything in the bank that we're going to use for the coming fiscal year starting tomorrow.
Todd Gleason:You can help us out. You can do that at willgive.0rg or go online or rather dial the phone at (217) 244-9455. That's 2172449455. Big Will. And thank you.
Todd Gleason:You have a great afternoon. I'm Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Doctor.
