Grains ended higher on Friday, with livestock lower.
Wheat Leads the Grains Higher
Wheat was the leader on Friday and was higher on technical buying as it was end of the month. However, the market also got a push as it was adding U.S. and global weather premium according to Naomi Blohm with Total Farm Marketing.
“So just earlier in the week, we saw the wheat market trade lower because there was forecast for rains to come into the Plains. But now they took some of that rain out of the forecast.”
She says there are also global hiccups she says.“Specifically, the market is focusing on India. And India is one of the largest wheat producers in the world. Everything that they grow, they keep. They don’t export that much. So, if there is a point where India has to import wheat because of a crop failure issue, the world is really going to wake up.”
She says that had fund traders, who have been heavily short for nearly two years covering some of those positions.
Wheat Sees Chart Breakout
Wheat closed higher for the week and the month which Blohm says is bullish.“Yeah, so now we’ve got two months in a row of the wheat market just working higher. So January, on the monthly chart, we had a bullish key reversal, a small one, but it was on major support, 20-year uptrend line. And so that held with a bullish key reversal.”
Corn Follows Wheat
Corn also made new highs for the move on technical buying and following wheat plus a flash sale of 10.1 million bu. to unknown destinations. However, it also had a chart breakout too with a higher weekly and monthly close.
It is also back trading in the range it was stuck in for several weeks before the bearish January WASDE sunk the market. “And it’s taken us, you know, a month and a half for prices to climb right back up to where we were. So now this is its resistance, not only from just a horizontal technical standpoint, but it’s also a downtrend resistance line as well. So it’s a significant point here. So if corn gets friendly news, technically speaking, we could see a pretty quick 25 cent rally.”
She admits corn will see headwinds though, “The corn market is still dealing with the reality of a 2-billion-bu. carryout. So, corn is very cautious to go too much higher from here in the short term without some fresh news. The May contract is hanging out near $4.50, the December contract trading near $4.70 at major one-year downtrend resistance areas.”
Corn Watching Three Things in March
- What is the wheat market doing. If wheat works higher, corn will follow.
- Weather in the second crop Brazil corn. So that’s more to the end of the month.
- News on biofuels and potentially new strong demand there.
She is also monitoring the conflict with Iran, because if crude oil starts working higher because of the Iran conflict, corn could follow too.
Soybeans Also Higher But Will They Take Out the November Highs?
Soybeans made new highs for the move this week and have been the price leader in the grain complex on hopes for China sales and increased biofuels demand.However, the market can’t get above last November’s highs.What will it take to get there?She says confirmation of some of the 8 MMT soybean purchases President Trump has announced.
Blohm says, “So very, very short term, we need confirmation of China buying. But without a doubt, we have a U.S. market that is $1 higher, at least, compared to South American markets as they’re coming into harvest. So, we need China to buy.”
If they buy, Blohm says it’s probably going to be due to a political deal with the United States. President Trump and President Xi aren’t expected to really have another conversation until late March, early April.
But she adds something to keep an eye on in early March is that the Chinese government and their parliament have a big meeting and a big speech, kind of their equivalent of a State of the Union address. “But they’re going to be talking about the five-year plan talking about what’s important here in the short term. So we’re going to be really anxious to see the transcript from that meeting to know how that might hint towards future relations with the United States, what that might mean for some of our exports.”
Does the U.S. Get a Long-Term Deal with China?
The soybean market has been building up hopes into this April summit between Xi and Trump for a long-term deal that is signed.But could we get a buy the rumor, sell the fact kind of reaction?
Blohm says, “Yeah, those are all the questions that we’re all so curious about. And when Trump and Xi meet, Trump will say, this is what’s happened. And sometimes China responds with confirmation in some capacity, and sometimes they don’t. And then we just have to wait and see if there’s any actual specific trades that happen behind the scenes that then come to fruition. So that’ll be the next thing for when they get together in late March, early April. Is there something more concrete that comes out of it?”
She says we’ll have to keep an eye on what’s happening with Iran and how that comes into play and how the Russian and Ukraine relationships play. Because, of course, of that also connects to China as well and all of their political conversations as a big group.
Robust RVOs
The soybean oil market continued to make new contract highs on Friday and was up sharply for the week and month building in the increased demand tied to more robust biofuels blending levels in the Renewable Volume Obligations that were sent to OMB this week.
Is the market close to pricing this news in?Blohm says, “I think that things are definitely on the right track. Some of it, yeah, priced in for sure because we’ve been talking about this for a while.”
She is also watching palm oil prices in Malaysia and Indonesia as the weather down there isn’t perfect right now. “Suddenly it’s too rainy and that’s poorly affecting their production. So that might be a good thing for Americans from the standpoint of maybe these countries won’t be importing as much soybean or palm oil so instead they would import soybean oil. So there’s something to be monitoring there as well just from another export demand.”
Less Corn, More Bean Acres?
There was a great deal of talk at Commodity Classic about acreage mix for 2026.The consensus is for fewer acres of corn, more acres of beans, but how much? She says, “Just quick math would tell you if we plant maybe 3 million less acres of corn than last year or 4 million less acres of corn than last year, we’re still dealing with that potential 2 billion bushel carryout. And that’s a hard thing to get through. So that’s where we’re hoping for better news on the biofuels front.”
Crop insurance guarantees show similar corn prices compared to last year, but soybeans are 50-cents higher. So, that could shift a few acres.
Cattle Down Friday and For the Week
Cattle ended the week with steep losses on Thursday and Friday and ended up with lower weekly closes.Blohm says some of it was end of the month profit taking but also lower cash.
The market was also spooked by rumors of the JBS beef plant in Greeley, CO facing a worker strike.That invoked technical selling and there was some technical damage done on the charts.
“Yeah, we went below some of those major moving averages, and so we had been just really flirting with this uptrend line, and then it started to go into a tight rope walk sideways, and now we’re looking for the safety net below.”
