Oct 21 | Closing Market Report
From the land of Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois. This is the closing market reported as the October 2025. I'm extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Naomi Bloem. She's at totalfarmmarketing.
Todd Gleason:Com. Did you know Columbia is the number three export market for corn? We'll talk about that for just a bit today, and then we'll turn our attention to the agricultural energies. Dave Chatterton will be here from Strategic Farm Marketing, and we'll wrap things up today with a discussion of the weather forecast as usual with Dundee at Day Weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming on this Tuesday edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. Right now you can purchase your tickets for the farm assets conference online at willag.org.
Todd Gleason:That's willag.0rg. Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension. December corn for the day at $4.19 and 3 quarters. That finished 3 and a half cents lower. The March contract at $4.33 and 3 quarters, down 3 and a quarter cents in May at $4.41 and 3 quarters, three and a half lower.
Todd Gleason:November beans, $10.30 and 3 quarters, a penny lower. January at $10.48 and a half, down one and a half, and March soybeans at $10.62 and 3 quarters, a penny and a quarter lower. Bean meal down rather up a dollar 90. The bean oil 66¢ lower. Wheat futures December down four and a half at $5 and a quarter cent, and the hard red December at $4.85 down a nickel for the day.
Todd Gleason:Live cattle futures at $2.45, 42 and a half up a dollar 77 and a half. Feeder cattle at $370.27 and a half cents, a dollar 10 higher, and the lean hogs were up a buck 20. Naomi Bloem from Total Farm Marketing now joins us on this Tuesday to take a look at the marketplace. Hello, Naomi. Thanks for being with us again.
Naomi Blohm:Yes. Always a pleasure. Thank you.
Todd Gleason:It has been a beautiful couple of fall days. Finally fantastic. A little sunshine, a little wind, which is normal in the fall. Things have dried out. We had rain over the weekend, which helped producers put a little, dust back down and make it easier to harvest and moisture back in the crop a little bit.
Todd Gleason:Can you tell me about what the marketplace has been doing in response?
Naomi Blohm:Well, we are with still quiet marketplace overall for corn and soybeans, looking at the corn market here, December corn continues to trade in a very lackluster range where the four ten area on December corn is big support. And then every time we try to get up to four and a quarter, we fall flat on our faces. And that's exactly what happened last night. We got up to about $4.24 half as the high price. Couldn't get through that $4.25 number, So markets today posted a little bit of an outside bearish reversal.
Naomi Blohm:My thought is that we'll probably meander back down to support levels just because of a lack of fresh news to trade on. Fundamentally, I still feel like December corn holds that $4.10 support area. If we do get back down there, I do think that that would be a re ownership opportunity and a buying point on charts to be watching. And with the beans, they have been pushing higher for about five or six trade sessions, today finishing just a little bit lower. So the November contract has good support at $10, resistance had been $10.25.
Naomi Blohm:Yesterday and today, though, we were able to close above $10.25. But just, again, just don't have a lot of fresh news to get us to go blasting higher from here. The weekly export inspections yesterday were very supportive overall. We are moving product, but without those USDA reports, just hard to find fresh news to really trade on relying on farmer information on yield and keeping an eye on basis levels. So I would expect some more quiet sideways trade here in the coming weeks until we get this government reopened and those USDA reports flowing again.
Todd Gleason:On the basis side, I suspect you're checking maps and asking folks what basis is doing in their area. Does it reflect a less than crop, as many had expected in Iowa?
Naomi Blohm:Well, I've been certain places, are seeing basis improvements, and then it'll improve for a couple days and then just be stagnant for a while, I think, as some of the grain comes in. Last week, we saw basis improvement at The Gulf, and I think that made sense when we had those decent, export inspection numbers yesterday just to, again, confirm that product is moving out of the country. So that explains why some of that basis had firmed up at The Gulf. And now we'll be, I'm guessing, quiet basis numbers here as the last of harvest gets underway. I think the general assumption in the trade is that the the bean harvest is probably getting pretty close to wrapped up based on farmers I'm talking to.
Naomi Blohm:And I would say that the corn crop out there nationwide, definitely halfway done. I'm not quite sure how much advanced it is beyond that. But as the last of that corn comes in, that that will probably affect basis levels. We'll see if it widens out or not or if it stays firm just because of this cheap value that's there. And then, of course, the industry still continues to, I think, overall believe that this yield is definitely gonna come in lower than USDA projections.
Naomi Blohm:The question, of course, how much lower? And for that, we'll need the USDA reports to give us some insight.
Todd Gleason:It would be nice to have the November report. We'll see whether that can actually take place. We'll soon get to the point where it would have to be moved back if it were to take place, and the government hasn't opened back up just yet. Or we'll continue looking forward to December, one of the two. So we'll go through those numbers.
Todd Gleason:What's on the world stage that you've been watching? There are all kinds of things. In fact, I was wondering if you had any thoughts about trade with Colombia, the number three export market for US corn, and it's been that way for more than a decade.
Naomi Blohm:Correct. I would say that any news or threat of of losing some trade exports to Colombia would be negative for the corn market. So we will wanna keep an eye on that conversation for sure. But, you know, what what I'm curious about is how much specifically grain, of course, has been sold to these countries. Of course, that we can't see.
Naomi Blohm:But these export inspections, you know, coming in just so strong. So what actually has left the country? So we are above the seasonal pace needed to reach the USDA projections, but it'll be very interesting to your point, Todd, to see, who has bought what, how much have they bought, how much of what they bought has been leaving The United States as harvest is getting underway, and we're always, always, of course, concerned if we would potentially lose any export business to any of these countries who have been our main customers due to ongoing tariff threats or trade negotiations.
Todd Gleason:Speaking of trade negotiations, how concerned, if at all, are you that president Trump and president Xi will actually meet at APAC and talk soybeans that is.
Naomi Blohm:Yeah. So that's, of course, the question, you know, and every other day, it's are they gonna meet? Aren't they going to meet? You know, we're still looking to see how much of the the beans that China needs to secure for December or January. Trade talk was that they still needed to purchase eight or 9,000,000 metric tons for the winter time frame, early winter time frame.
Naomi Blohm:So the hope still would be that they buy from us. But, again, as the trade negotiations and just the daily drama between The United States and China continues, that could still be at risk. So we're gonna wanna definitely keep an eye out for that in the coming weeks. It is paramount and top of mind for soybean and soybean price.
Todd Gleason:Thank you much. I appreciate it.
Naomi Blohm:Alright. Thank you.
Todd Gleason:That's Naomi Bloom. She is with totalfarmmarketing.com. Just one quick agricultural news item for the day. The blowup this week with Colombia could have blowback for corn. President Trump's war on drugs in The Caribbean could put the third largest export destination for US corn in peril.
Todd Gleason:The president announced Sunday that new trade sanctions will be levied sometime this week against the Latin American nation. It is already subject to a 19% reciprocal tariff. USDA reports Colombia purchased about two seventy five million bushels of the feed grain from The United States last year or $1,500,000,000 worth. Colombia has been the number three corn export destination for more than a decade. The US signed a free trade agreement with it in 2012.
Todd Gleason:Total US agricultural exports to Colombia have increased by 309% since the agreement was enacted. The top 10 US agricultural products exported to it in 2024 by value were corn, soybean meal, ethanol, pork, distillers grains, soybeans, dairy products, other feed, wheat, and soybean oil. The US imports coffee and cut flowers from Colombia among other products. Let's check-in now on the agricultural energies with Dave Chatterton. He's at Strategic Farm Marketing right here in Champaign County.
Todd Gleason:Hi Dave. Thanks for being with us today. What have you been watching as it's related to the energy market in the last month or so?
Dave Chatterton:Yeah. Been a really interesting market. If you kinda look at what's happening, we are hired today, but we were lower six of the last eight sessions, you know, coming into today and I've seen some pressure on the market. Really, we're setting up for what's going to be our third month down here. We've definitely got a downtrend in the charts and the technical aspect of the market.
Dave Chatterton:And I think, you know, part of that, comes from a fear of a supply glut. We've got OPEC sharply increasing their production here month to month and bringing all the production cuts that they had put into the market back online. We've also seen floating storage of the number of vessels loaded with oil on the water or in transit hit a record high over a billion barrels. So if people like the IEA out here talking about a large surplus for next year as high as 4,000,000 barrels per day, more supply than demand, and demand growth just not keeping up with that supply side. So it's really pushed these markets to, you know, to some values we haven't seen in a while.
Dave Chatterton:Maybe a good example is diesel fuel futures. Right now we're talking, in that $2.18 $2.19 per gallon range. And we had a low last week at about $2.12 but that's about as low as we've been here going back to the COVID time period during 2019 and 2020. And getting some levels here that I think are definitely catching a few end users' eyes as far as what constitutes value looking forward. Margaret trying to sort all that out in a geopolitical element here that sanctions or potential sanctions against Iran and Russia.
Dave Chatterton:We've got the Russia Ukraine war ongoing and Ukraine increasing their attacks on Russian oil infrastructure. So there's always a lot going on, but it has a very bearish feel here at the moment, Todd.
Todd Gleason:How bearish do you think it might be, and what does it mean for farmer producers who mostly have gotten all their supplies in, place for the 2025 year already, and that's kind of done, but looking forward into the planting season of 2026?
Dave Chatterton:Yeah. So for 2026, definitely, you know, looking forward at this point and trying to kind of keep our eyes open. So, you know, if you look at cash diesel fuel on the farm, number two farm diesel running about $2.85 here, you know, this week, and that's near the bottom of that. As we mentioned, that whole post COVID range and before that, that 2020 period, you'd have to go back to 2016. So you definitely wanna be watching here.
Dave Chatterton:We had some price targets for our end users down in these areas. We've kinda held off for now, Todd, on both the LP and the diesel side, but I think you have to be cognizant that things can change very quickly. As a risk manager, I think at some point as we approach that, you know, $2 mark for futures or below, it's sort of rarefied here to stay below that level for much. So in the next let's say $15.20, 25¢ here, I think we're going to go ahead and recommend some coverage here both for spring and fall of next year. So kind of a hands off moment here, but but definitely watching very closely and getting ready to maybe click that safety off the trigger, if you will.
Todd Gleason:What do the charts tell you about pricing for this marketplace or maybe the cycles?
Dave Chatterton:Yeah. So seasonally, this is the time of the year that we would actually be looking for a little bit of a price high and haven't quite got to that, you know, at this particular point. And I should say we look for a price low coming into October and then a market that rallies out through the end of the year and into the early part of next year. And so that's part of the calculus here of seasonally that would normally come here in late October, early November. We're right in that time period.
Dave Chatterton:We've got the market trending lower here. Some important technical numbers below the market. I mean we're below $60 in crude. We're moving towards $2 in diesel fuel. So again, think if you want a lack of a better term, the stars are lining up here just a little bit.
Dave Chatterton:We've got some US China trade negotiations this week between Secretary Bissent and his Chinese counterparts and hopefully at the end of the month here between President Trump and President Xi that are going to complicate things here a little bit. Those are often turning points in the marketplace. If you remove a little bit of that uncertainty and have the market feel a little bit better about global you know, trade, growth, prosperity, inflation, and those kind of things, I think that would be the key to maybe turning this market just a little bit, Todd.
Todd Gleason:The crude oil market, energy market in general, has been moving lower since 2022. Are we and we're down at the bottom end of the range, which really, we've made a couple of times, frankly, this year in April and May, I suppose. Is are are we looking at a range bound trade, do you think, for crude oil that's in that $55 a barrel range up to what? I don't know. 70, 76, 77 or something along those lines?
Dave Chatterton:Yeah, and of course that's a pretty wide range and you know, we go back and look at the recent lows you're trading today, let's call it $58 and you go back and look at you know, the lows from earlier this year, 55.3 in May and I think we had a low at right around that 55.1 mark in April. So you know whether or not we can hold those are going to be pretty important here. But the upside seems a little bit challenging here with the amount of production that's coming onto the market and as these ships kind of unload their cargoes eventually and around some of these, you know, new shipping tariffs and whatever, we're going to see inventories kind of want to swing up through the first part of the year. So I do think there is a cap on the top of the market which supports this range bound kind of idea of where we're at and what the downside ultimately ends up being. And just like in the grain markets, picking that bottom, if you will, is always a very tough and dangerous and often costly kind of an endeavor.
Dave Chatterton:But it feels like we're we're in a range here where the downside is getting limited and the risk is certainly skewing to the upside.
Todd Gleason:What does it mean for the ethanol market when prices go this low?
Dave Chatterton:Yeah. Well, ethanol value's definitely been, you know, coming down as we you know, as they attach themselves to crude oil and the refined markets as we get look forward here. Plant margins have suffered because of that. They're still positive. We're going to calc them if you want to put a general number on it probably around 30¢ a gallon net of all costs here but that's down nearly let's say half from the recent highs here and we do have a pretty strong export market there.
Dave Chatterton:They are on pace for a new yearly record here but we need to keep that up. And again it's kind of swimming down and tight. It's very tied at the hip to what's happening with the grain markets and the oil markets and with the pressure coming from the oil market and not a lot of rally in that corn side just yet, we're feeling a little bit of pressure here. Now production has been good. Stocks have remained relatively high but so it's you know, turnaround season is really closing up right now.
Dave Chatterton:We're looking at some production numbers starting to ramp up as we get ready for spring and summer product, you know, usage next year. So, you know, it feels like a range bound market there as well, Todd.
Todd Gleason:And finally, we don't usually talk about the grains. You did mention corn. Of course, we were talking about ethanol. The marketplace has been, I guess, lackluster trading sideways relatively speaking since there have not been any USDA reports. What are you thinking about that marketplace?
Dave Chatterton:Yeah. Todd, corn is up, you know, in rough terms, let's just say Decor is up about 6¢ since the shutdown three weeks ago, and then when the government data stopped, we are getting some of the weekly EIA data which is helpful, know, similar to what we're getting for export shipments in the grains. But the market has some challenges here. We certainly have good demand for corn right now. We've got good in the export side.
Dave Chatterton:We've got good demand in the ethanol side and feed is holding its own here. But the path for the USDA to increase off of demand for 2026 that's already at a record you know twenty five-twenty six crop year that's already at a record projection is somewhat limited. So without having the government reporting on supply and where yields are going to be, I think there's a general consensus that you know the USDA has to come down on their yields to some degree but I don't think it's to a degree that really gets us that changes the narrative a whole lot and finding a spot where you can work your your carryout down towards and or below that 2,000,000,000 market is really tough. So a little bit of a challenge on the upside to corn. I don't want to say that I'm super bearish.
Dave Chatterton:The market has performed relatively well here, but just not a lot of incentive to be long a lot of corn from a speculative perspective right now and you know I guess we'll see if a trade deal is possible but no indication here that China really needs or wants any corn from anyone at the particular moment. And again we kind of maxed out the drivers on the demand side from the other aspects here. So we're gonna watch the weather in South America. I think that'll be your next key, but more more bean centric here than corn in the near term.
Todd Gleason:Thank you much. I appreciate it.
Dave Chatterton:Thank you.
Todd Gleason:Dave Chatterton is with Strategic Farm Marketing joined us here on the closing market report for this Tuesday afternoon. Don't forget to visit our website at wilag.org, willag.0rg, there and on the PharmDoc website and maybe you should go there first, pharmdocdaily.illinois.edu. You can sign up for the Farm Assets Conference and the Illinois Farm Economic Summit. Those are coming up in the month of December, but first there is this Thursday an important event, a free webinar that you can sign up from the PharmDoc team looking at the impact that government closures have on agriculture. You'll want to make sure that you join the PharmDoc team to discover what this really means for agriculture across the board, especially as it continues to drag along and doesn't look to end anytime soon.
Todd Gleason:That's at farmdocdaily.illinois.edu. Let's check the weather forecast now with Don Day. He's a day weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Hello, Don. Thanks for being with us.
Todd Gleason:Sounds like, well, already is a lot cooler than it was. What happened that brought us this cool weather?
Don Day:Well, we're finally just, playing with mother time where the odds of getting colder air leaking out of Canada just get higher and higher the deeper we go into the month of October. And we're gonna see another shot of colder air come in as a system that is now up in South Central Canada heads up into the Northern Great Lakes and eventually New England. And the backside of that system allow winds from the Northwest to blow, pushing in some colder air. So we're gonna see some temperatures going at or below freezing over a large part of the Northern Plains, parts of the Northern And Western Corn Belt for both this upcoming Thursday night and Friday night.
Todd Gleason:Any hard freezes meaning 28 degrees for two, three, four hours overnight somewhere?
Don Day:There's going to be yeah. There'll be some of those areas. I certainly think that along and north of Interstate 80 is where you're you're gonna see those coldest temperatures. You get south of there, we may not be that cold. But a lot of it's gonna depend on what the wind and the clouds do at night.
Don Day:And this is a situation that low line areas, places a little bit lower, you're going to get a little bit colder in some of those pockets.
Todd Gleason:That would demarcate the end of the growing season, though. It's probably not much of a worry, about on time, I would think, for the northern part of the Corn Belt.
Don Day:Yeah. One thing that we've seen here in the month of October is we've had a lot of active weather. But one thing we haven't had is we haven't had that big wave of cold air coming out of those higher latitudes and pushing deep into The US. Now, I think before the month's over and into early November, that's going to happen. But we haven't been caught this year with an early widespread hard freeze, at least on a widespread basis.
Don Day:So from that standpoint, it's it's been a fairly gentle October, at least when it comes to temperature.
Todd Gleason:The cooler cold in some places. Will we have any more rainfall?
Don Day:Yeah. Certainly as we get into the early parts of next week, we're going to see a pretty significant storm hit the Pacific Northwest this weekend. And what's left of this storm is going to move very quickly into the Central And Northern Plains early to mid next week. And it will likely be a pretty good rain producer, I think, especially for the Central And Western Corn Belt. Some of the Eastern Corn Belt will likely get wet out of this as well.
Don Day:And as you get up into the Northern Great Lakes, maybe parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin could see some snow out of that system.
Todd Gleason:On the snow, I wonder because you're there in Wyoming, and I know you keep pretty close track of the snowpack for the wintertime. Are there any indications what that might look like?
Don Day:It's off to a good start in the Northern Rock. As you look at, what snow has fallen during the month of October in the mountains of Idaho, Montana, western and northern areas of Wyoming back into the Pacific Northwest, certainly those areas have had more snow so far than they did at this time last year. So the Central And Southern Rockies, like Colorado's drainages, they've got a little bit of snow as well. So it's a decent start to the snowpack season and better than it was a year ago.
Todd Gleason:Thank you much. We'll talk with you again next week.
Don Day:See you then.
Todd Gleason:That's Don Day. He's with Day Weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Joined us on this Tuesday edition of the closing market report that came to you from Illinois Public Media. I'm extension's Todd Gleason.
