May 05 | Closing Market Report
From the Lende Grand University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois, this is the closing market reported. It's the May 2025. I'm extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Kurt Kimmel. He's at AgMarket.net out of Normal, Illinois.
Todd Gleason:We'll hear from Usset, agricultural economist at the University of Minnesota. He's with extension, and then we'll finish our time out together by taking a look at the weather forecast for the Midwest and Europe. We'll do that with Mark Russo. He's at Everstream Analytics all on this Monday edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.0rg.
Todd Gleason:Oh, and thank you so much to everyone who made a gift last week, and our spring fun drive has made such a difference. We at the station really do appreciate it.
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Todd Gleason:July corn for the day settled at $4.54 and a quarter, down fourteen and three quarters of a cent. September seven at a quarter lower at $4.32 and three quarters. In December '4 '40 '3, down seven at a quarter. July beans, 12 and a half lower today, $10.45 and a half the settlement price. The August at $10.40 and a quarter down 11, and new crop November beans, eight and a quarter lower, settled at $10.22 and a quarter.
Todd Gleason:Bean meal futures at $2.95 50 off a dollar 40. The bean oil down 70¢ at $48.73. Soft red winter wheat down 11 and 3 quarter cents. Settlement price at $5.31 a bushel. The hard red July at $5.32 and 3 quarters.
Todd Gleason:The harvest month there down 8 and a half cents. Live cattle futures up $2.55. Settlement price at $2.13 65. Feeders at $298.90 per hundred pounds, $2 higher, and lean hogs down 35¢ today. A settlement price at $99 even.
Todd Gleason:Crude oil, $57.25 a barrel, down a buck and 2¢. Diesel fuel, a penny and a half lower. That's heating oil at a dollar 97 and 7 tenths, and gasoline on the RBOP at $2.02 and 6 tenths of a cent. That's just about 6 tenths or rather 6 hundredths of a cent lower for the day. The S and P five hundred down around seven to eight points and the Dow Jones Industrial Average about a 10 to 12 points higher.
Todd Gleason:We're now joined by Kurt Kimmel at AgMarket.net to discuss this gloomy Monday in the marketplace. Hi. Thanks much for being with us. I was hopeful you'd have a better day than today, but looks like things have turned down. Why is that the case, Kurt?
Curt Kimmel:Oh, boy. It's kinda hard hard to figure. It seems like, ever since the word go last night, even in the early morning trade, Mr. Gravity took over, the main culprit too is the corn moving below the two hundred day moving average and that kind of added a little fuel to the fire. Going to midday, the funds sold about over 13,000 contracts of corn, 4,100 contracts of wheat, 2,200 contracts of soybeans.
Curt Kimmel:And the products they were sellers of being all about 1,500, but they bought about 900 meal, going into midday for the most part. So I think it's mainly technically generated selling. We failed to hold some retracement levels. Corn, old crop corn July futures are approaching the lows we made back in the March and the March there, so it's gonna be kind of important for it to hold. December corn, you've got kind of a little bit of a head and shoulders bottom trying to form here, so it needs to catch and hold here at this four forty level.
Curt Kimmel:On the soybean side, technically, boy, we're just sideways in through here. We've been in the same trading range on old crop beans for the last month and even so for the new crop November, actually since the first part of March, so technically beans are still caught in their sideways pattern. But especially a little better performance in corn, shipments continue to be fairly good. We're shipping out what we sold, we're above pace, in fact next week's old crop corn report is expected to maybe show a 50 to 100,000,000 bushel increase in exports, even though we still have some time in the marketing season to go on that. I think it's also just kind of liquidation and the bull spread also.
Curt Kimmel:If you're looking at spreads, the July D spreads moving down to recent lows, that spread's narrowed up quite a bit so you might want to keep an eye on that spread. On to this afternoon's reports, we're seeing trade estimates on corn progress about 40% complete as a nation, beans about 29% complete as a nation. Forecast is really favorable in through here looking at some warmer drier conditions here as we move forward, hopefully allowing producers in that Southeast to get kinda caught up for the most part. Up in the Upper Midwest, it varies tremendously. There's some guys, gals that are done, and others still have a little bit to go, yet.
Curt Kimmel:Still early, so, we'll see what this afternoon's numbers show, but I imagine the progress is a little ahead of what we're actually gonna see this afternoon here, Todd.
Todd Gleason:A week from today on the twelfth, USDA will release the May WASDE, World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates. It will have the first official s and d tables for the new crop. Are you expecting any changes to that to come from what maybe the trade is thinking about as it's pulling forward the acreage numbers and the yield figures and such that came out of the month of March?
Curt Kimmel:Yeah. I think those numbers are gonna be dialed in. I think the range estimates were pretty well anticipated. It's kind of hard to fine tune that new crop balance sheet at this time of the year. A couple more reports maybe going into June, there's some ideas maybe there's a few more corn acres put in.
Curt Kimmel:But what's gonna move that bottom line from here on out of course is the yield, what type of yield you put on it and that's gonna be the market maker here as we move forward on, what type of weather forecast we have, but, that'll be the, yes, the first first one after that is going to be, subject to some, fine tuning here as we go through the growing season.
Todd Gleason:Farmers in parts of Central Illinois, of course, to the South and East have been halted. I wonder if you have talked to them, how far along are they? What questions have they been asking you, whether that's about old or new crop?
Curt Kimmel:Yeah. They've fairly comfortable except for that Southern part of Illinois and Indiana, a little frustrated there, ground that's rolling. Wheat's looking real good for some lower areas, boy, it's going be an issue, it's going to take a little while to dry out. Producers, mainly for the most part pretty well sold up on old crop. I know active markets were 100 sold on the old corn and we've done some cash replacements here putting $10.12 cents on the table here so if the market takes off, we're on board.
Curt Kimmel:If not, you know, that's what we have at risk. Whole beans just kind of hanging on to that last 20%. So most producers are hanging on to just a little bit of inventory. Of course, there's situations out there where they've not sold anything and wondering what to do on that. As far as new crop, I think most are eager to see some type of weather rally here as we move forward and get caught up on some new crop sales.
Curt Kimmel:The forecast shows the potential of some weather issues and as it kind of lines up right now, confined to the Western Corn Belt visiting with guys in Western Iowa, Missouri, They're they're getting a little bit dry. When you look at the weather maps in general, we had that omega high pressure ridge starting to show up, Todd.
Todd Gleason:Alright. Hey. Thanks much. We'll talk with you again next Monday. You bet.
Todd Gleason:Take care. You too. That's Kurt Kimmel. He is with agmarket.net, joins us here on Illinois Public Media's closing market report. Ed Asad, agricultural economist with University of Minnesota Extension now joins us.
Todd Gleason:Thanks, Ed, for being with us. Gray skies here, but I hear you have sunshine in the Northern part of The United States. How are things there?
Ed Usset:It's beautiful here. Just a clear blue sky. We had it yesterday. We got up to 80 degrees, and, it looks like pretty much the entire week is gonna be, sunshine and clear skies.
Todd Gleason:Oh, sounds as if tomorrow and the rest of the week here will be that way as well. That means the planters will be really moving. And I suppose that the trade in Chicago, the CME Group, will begin to really focus on new crop and acreage. What are you thinking about?
Ed Usset:Well, I think they're focused on it right now. This market has been a little bit on the soft side, particularly corn. It's down again today, not a fun thing to watch. And, yeah, we can we we focus so much on tariff talk, and yet for the moment, tariff talk is quiet. Still uncertain, but it's quiet.
Ed Usset:And I think no talk is good there. Unless you're worried about your import of foreign movies, I guess that's the latest one. But we'll leave that aside for the moment. But yeah, we turn our attention to the new crop and planting progress and how things are starting. And you know what?
Ed Usset:We're starting out just great. Planting progress is really good. It's happening fast. Fast enough in the world of corn. We wonder if we won't even get a few more corn acres.
Ed Usset:And, in that type of environment, we're getting off to a good start, we're seeing that in the prices here. They're they're on the defensive.
Todd Gleason:Let's deal with old crop just a little bit because I know there will be, farmers that have old crop left, maybe only gambling stocks. Yep. They're willing to gamble for a while with them. There has been a lot of discussion that demand should be really good at least for some time. I'm wondering what that means.
Todd Gleason:And what you're thinking as it relates to old crop and how much of a weight the new crop really is on that. And I and I suppose that's just, you know, timing more than anything else Do we get to to late July, early August before things fall apart? Mhmm. Particularly for old crop or what happens?
Ed Usset:Well, you bring up old crop, you bring up new crop, and now my my attention is turned. I'm looking at inverses. If you look in the corn market, for example, the July September spread, July is at a 28¢, premium to the September contract. We've got a sizable inverse. We've seen them bigger, but that's a pretty good sized inverse.
Ed Usset:We've got the same thing going on in soybeans. The July contract is close to a 30¢ inverse that is a premium to the September contract, and that's not gonna continue. I mean, we it it can continue for a few more months, but at some point, those two markets have to come together. The inverse, I I about has to resolve itself. And those of you who are holding on to old crop and you're gambling stocks, you're betting on that new crop value or the September values coming up to where the July's are right now.
Ed Usset:The other way that can happen is that July can collapse down to those September values. And that's my concern. If this is a good crop, if this is if we're if the planning progress continues, well, we got a good start to the crop, the the pressure is gonna be for that July contract to lose to, that inverse to go away on the downside.
Todd Gleason:Now you mentioned we have really not had much tariff talk, at least in the commodity marketplace recently. That will show up, I suppose, on the May 12 when USDA releases its next world agricultural supply and demand estimate, particularly in the soybean exports. What's your take on it?
Ed Usset:Well, it's it's just it's just hard to put something positive out there in that world of soybean exports. It sure doesn't look like we're gonna resolve things with China soon. I don't know if these issues will show do you think they'll show up in the May report already? You know, I I don't know.
Todd Gleason:USDA has said they will. Okay. Every time since that, I think, February, March, and April, or at least March and April, they have had a note at the top of the page of the it says, USDA uses current policy, and current policy will include the tariff that China is putting on all goods coming in from The United States.
Ed Usset:Well, I
Todd Gleason:mean, I I have to admit, Ed. I feel like I'm one of the few or maybe the only one that really believes that's the case when I'm talking to the analyst and possibly even you on air. Mhmm. They don't believe you don't believe USDA and take in for the word, but I kinda do. I really do.
Ed Usset:Well, then I'm gonna have one hell of a lot of interest when that May 12 report comes out to see how USDA is playing
Todd Gleason:this Everybody's hoping that I'm way wrong.
Ed Usset:Because I'm I'm shrugging my shoulders in ignorance, not knowing what to expect. So let's see what USDA thinks that ought to be Yeah.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. And and so it won't be the full amount, of course. Sure. Because because there will be, you know, what whatever China doesn't take. Let's even if they said China isn't gonna take anything, there will be a transition of some of that to other places.
Todd Gleason:But I I don't know. I I haven't I haven't thought. It's not my job to think about how much, really. What's my job to think about how much, but how to calculate how much, that change might be. But it seems like it could be awfully awfully big, I suppose.
Ed Usset:There will be. You mentioned there there's gonna be if we if we slow our exports to China, or I should say China slows its imports from us, the more they concentrate on South America, we're gonna pick up some business from other players who sort of get crowded out of the South American market. That happened in 2018 and '19. You know, we we looked at our soybean exports, and I I remember reading reports. Wow.
Ed Usset:Look at how we're growing the exports in these other parts of the world. Well, of course, we were. They they couldn't get their stuff from South America. South America went to a premium. And, that could happen again.
Ed Usset:But that's not a sign of a healthy market when we're just rearranging the chairs on the deck.
Todd Gleason:Rearranging chairs on the deck and losing
Ed Usset:In terms of trade, know, but they're coming to us. It speaks to inefficiencies. And I don't think inefficiencies are good in any market.
Todd Gleason:Now we'll see how that all plays out. What else are you watching, in the marketplace? And I must go back to the because I remind listeners from time to time that you have, a rule of thumb. Actually just a rule, that says thou shalt not carry anything into the month of July. You haven't ever changed that.
Todd Gleason:I don't suppose you're gonna change that this year for sure.
Ed Usset:No. I haven't. No. I haven't. That is the eleventh commandment of grain marketing.
Ed Usset:Thou shall not hold on price grain, corn, or soybeans in the bin after July 1. It's all about long broader trends, the the tendency for new crop corn and soybean futures to go lower into the summer into harvest. It's a tendency, not a certainty. There's also a tendency for basis to get wider from from spring highs to harvest lows. So you got two trends working against you.
Ed Usset:They've been very powerful the last few years and very punitive for people, holding old crop grain. Does that mean it'll happen again this year? Yeah. Nothing's a % in this world. My friend Hank Holder, who does so poorly holding his grain so long, you know, he's due for a comeback one of these years.
Ed Usset:But it's such a powerful trend that, as we talk about it. I hope people are paying attention to their old crop in the bin, thinking about this this month and next month, taking any rallies, and let's I've got my fingers and toes crossed that we get a rally. And if we get a rally, clean up those old old crop issues.
Todd Gleason:Hey. Thanks much. I appreciate it.
Ed Usset:Thank you, Todd.
Todd Gleason:Ed Asit is an agricultural economist at the University of Minnesota. He's with extension there. You're listening to the closing market report from Illinois Public Media on this Monday afternoon. Our theme music is written, performed, produced in courtesy of Logan County, Illinois Farmer Tim Gleason. Don't forget to visit our website.
Todd Gleason:The address is wilag.org. That's willag.0rg. There you'll find our daily programming to listen to anytime you'd like. A way to subscribe to the podcast, just hit podcast and then hit subscribe in the favorite podcast you have, commodity week, the closing market report, or even the Illinois nutrient loss reduction podcast. Oh, and you can always find information from the agricultural economist, the crop scientist, the animal scientist at willag.0rg.
Todd Gleason:Let's check the weather forecast now with Mark Russo. He's at Everstream Analytics, joins us each Monday here on the closing market report. Hi, Mark. Thanks for being with us. Begin with the weather forecast.
Todd Gleason:For the Midwest, my inclination is to say that it will be dry. And in fact, we'd already talked to Ed Usset, who is in Minnesota, and he says they've had two beautiful days there. Not so here, still a little gray, and yesterday was wet and gray. What can you tell us about the whole of the Corn Belt?
Mark Russo:Yeah. Over not only this week, but even into next week, it's a below normal rainfall pattern for much of the Midwest. In fact, for this week, basically, outside of some very light showers in the Far Eastern Belt here today, that's it. It's it's dry across the entire belt. Next week does offer a little bit of an increase in rain, but again, it looks minor in nature.
Mark Russo:And the other item of note is that after a bit more seasonal temperatures this week, then temperatures rapidly climb to distinct warmer than normal levels next week. So all in all, planting weather looks pretty darn good here for the next couple of weeks virtually across the entire Midwest.
Todd Gleason:Sounds like we can throw the option of a late spring frost out the door in that case. When you look into the May, what do you see?
Mark Russo:Yeah, this warmer than normal pattern as well as the drier bias right now does look to persist into the back half of the month. Confidence is highest on the temperature side of things. Rain activity here, obviously lower confidence. But right now, we're seeing more signs of this generally drier bias, you know, being the pattern versus an abrupt change to something much wetter.
Todd Gleason:Are there parts of the Midwest that are already dry that this will become a problem for sooner rather than later?
Mark Russo:Not at all. You know, the areas that previously had been quite dry, again, they've gotten some rains of late, for the time being, drier weather is favorable. It would have to persist into June, and temperatures would have to stay elevated for it to start to become problematic. So we have a ways to go there.
Todd Gleason:Tell me about Europe and what you're seeing in those areas.
Mark Russo:Oh, we're seeing some changes in the pattern. We've seen improvement in more of Southern Europe, that improvement in rainfall and soil moisture that extends in the Black Sea region as well. So those areas are improving for winter crops and summer crops. But Northern Europe has trended much drier, looks to stay dry over the next two weeks. That's an area to watch with decreasing crop conditions as we go through the May.
Todd Gleason:And then into the Black Sea and parts of Russia?
Mark Russo:Yeah, further improvement here as the pattern has shifted wetter, especially for Southern Russia. So it's an improving situation for both winter crop development as well as for summer crop planting due to the active pattern in place across the Black Sea.
Todd Gleason:It's always good to talk with you, Mark. We'll talk with you again next Monday.
Mark Russo:Thanks for having me, Todd.
Todd Gleason:Mark Russo is with AvarStream Analytics joined us here on the closing market report that comes to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the Farming World online on demand at willag.0rg. I'm Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason.
