Market News

Soybeans, corn, wheat start month with more gains

Soybeans were sharply higher on fund and technical buying. The USDA’s national crop rating is at a multi-year low, with hot, dry weather in the near-term forecast, potentially trimming yield. The USDA will issue updated supply, demand, and production numbers September 11^th. China bought another 136,000 tons of U.S. beans ahead of the open, taking the running total over the past three business days to 703,000 tons, all for 2026/27 delivery. The new marketing year for soybeans, corn, and sorghum started September 1^st. The USDA says 222 million bushels of beans were crushed during July, up 4 million from June and 17 million from July 2025. Higher production did push soybean meal and oil stocks above year ago levels. Soybean meal and oil futures were up, following beans. The EPA’s SRE announcement Monday was already factored in for bean oil, which now waits to see what happens with reallocation.

Corn was higher on fund and technical buying. The U.S. good to excellent rating is the lowest it’s been in years, with some potential late weather impact to yield. It’s been a trying couple of months in some areas for corn, leading to some expectations for a cut in yield by the USDA later this month. Overall demand continues to be solid. The USDA says 474.741 million bushels of corn were used to make ethanol in July, up 2% on the month and 4% on the year. Distillers dried grains with solubles production was 1,853,111 tons, 2% more than the previous month, but 1% less than last year. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s weekly ethanol production numbers are out Wednesday. Corn is also monitoring harvest in Argentina, along with the second crop harvest and first crop planting in Brazil. CONAB’s new numbers for Brazil are set for September 15^th.

The wheat complex was higher on fund and technical buying. There’s no end in sight to the Black Sea export slowdown as Russia continues to wage war on Ukraine. Even if the war were to end today, it’d still take a significant amount of time to repair damage to infrastructure. The U.S. spring wheat harvest is ahead of average and drought in the Plains could limit hard red winter wheat planted area. Wheat is also watching Argentina, Australia, Canada, and Europe. Australia’s ABARES now has the crop at 29.9 million tons, up 3 million from the last guess thanks to timely rainfall. That’s considerably below a year ago but should still leave a solid exportable surplus.