Latest / Professional Ag Marketing Podcast / Post WASDE and Trade Negotiations | Grain Market Talk May 15th, 2026

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Post WASDE and Trade Negotiations | Grain Market Talk May 15th, 2026 · Professional Ag Marketing Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're locked in to the Grain Market Talk Podcast.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Fast updates, market movers, and the grain news you need right now.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Trading commodity futures and options involve substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Today is May 15th.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I've got Jaden here with us.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to talk about the grain markets today after what we could call an incredibly active week, Jaden.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: I got you here with me today.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: How's it going on?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's going.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's been quite a week there, Mike.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, to say the least, if you talk me through where we've been in the last week here, how are we sitting versus where we were last Friday and kind of some of the price action that we saw in between, let's say.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so week over week here, just looking at starting here with corn.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: So high on the week was 506 and low was 481, and we close right on the low on the week at 481.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: But week over week we lost 13 cents on that market.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: And the beans um week over week lost 19 cents there, finished at 1171.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of volatility in there, a lot of up and then a lot of down, pretty rough close versus where we've been trading at.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start at the beginning of the week.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: What we're gonna walk through is we had two major events occur for the grain market.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: But before that, on Monday, we had a prospective planning support that came out and showed great progress last week on planning.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, no real planning delays in the corn belt worth any substance to the futures markets, at least.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: So planning progress has been great.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of folks have wrapped up planning here before this weekend's pretty big rain shower event that's gonna be coming through the Western Corn Belt uh this weekend.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Tuesday, we had a WASD report.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this was significant because we had a WASD report that gave us a fresh new balance sheet for this upcoming crop year, and that was the first time we got to look at it.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: And what did you see out of that report, Jaden?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're starting with corn here as Cade pulls this up.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, on the old crop side of things didn't really change much.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh dropped food seed down 15 million bushels, so ended up increasing that carry out there to 2.142.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: But the big story was a 26-27 first outlook for that from the USDA.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: But just looking at that balance sheet, the high level there, using a trend line yield of 183, and they kind of use the same demand numbers as this past year, so pretty lofty demand numbers.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: They can they continue to think that we're gonna have great exports and great ethanol grind, but still sticking around that 2 billion bushel mark there on the corn.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: But soybeans, I would say, looking at the domestic balance sheet there, I would argue that was more of a bullish um WASDA report there.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: So they definitely think they're pretty hopeful on this crush number going forward here.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that 2.75 is a pretty massive number there for the crush outlook for the next year.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then I would say that 1630 on the export.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, China's gonna have to be pretty active there for us to reach that number.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: But 310 million bushels of ending stocks for next year for beans, the USDA is thinking that's pretty small.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Very much so.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Any other big misses that you saw across the board here?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: I know one of the big misses was the world carry out on corn, came in significantly lower than the average trade guess, Jaden.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: What else did you see?
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Anything out of South America that caught your eye?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, we were trailing behind on the Argentina corn production estimate, um, and also the Brazil corn estimate compared to a lot of their reporting agencies, but finally the USDA caught up there.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: So on the last report, we were predicting 52 million tons of production from South America, and we bumped that up to 59 there.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: So on the upper end of trade estimates there.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was substantial as well.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: When I looked at the Wazir port, basically what we saw was wheat.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Wheat came out, they said they had a significantly lower production, even than expected on wheat, which if you look at the uh the U.S.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: uh uh production basically, that's where it basically all came out of Oklahoma, Kansas.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the wheat tour as well this week came through and showed a significantly lower estimate on yield than what we had factored in as well.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, what can you sh tell me about the uh all wheat production, winter wheat production?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so big number there, like Cades got pulled up on the board there.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: So that is the smallest production estimate for wheat since 1972.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's all wheat, and winter wheat was the lowest since 1957.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: So just thinking about that fact right there, we kind of knew the wheat crop wasn't there due to a lot of the dryness we have experienced, but I guess the USDA had to tell us that it isn't there for the trade to believe it.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so a big, big move up in the wheat over that time frame.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: We actually traded uh limit the other day.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Took it all back, though, the last couple days in the wheat market.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: What can you tell us about the China trade negotiations, which we knew were gonna have a huge impact on this market, just didn't know quite what way it would be.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: What did you see out of the last couple trading sessions?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I think something to really keep an eye on was the funds going into this meeting, this big week in general for the grains.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: So heading into the week, we were you know near record long on corn and soybeans, just building a lot of optimism for this meeting.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: And Thursday, Friday, we basically sold the fact of really there was no facts.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, all that came out from it from it was best and said the soybeans are taken care of, guys, and that that's all we really saw.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't see any specific numbers of what they're gonna buy or even the mention of corn.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: So really took back those gains real quick.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: So we lost about 50 cents on soybeans in the last couple days and about 25 on corn.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: So didn't end the week on the highest note, that's for sure.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: You had we'll find out at three here if the funds had a record long position on Tuesday or not.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: But here's a case, we were close to it if we weren't a record.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: And when we look at it from that perspective, it was really hard to take profit on those longs before this news because the market was anticipating, I wonder if we're gonna see China step in and buy corn or not.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: That completely opened up the floodgates to say I can take profit now for the time being until there is a significant weather problem.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: At this point, there is dryness in the south.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Wheat's got a weather problem.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: That kind of all the edges around the corn belt have a problem here locally, even it's just getting dry.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to get some rain on this weekend here.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: That'll be key as well, but it's pretty early yet.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: So you're looking at a few different things.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: But one, they got the green light to be able to say, hey, I can take profits, I can sell this thing off a little bit.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Let's wait for either uh a significant change in pace of the Iran situation or weather.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And at this point, Trump said he was gonna be quiet for a few days on Iran, anyways.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that really has opened up the door to say, hey, I can I can take some profits on these grains, sell it off a little bit, let's calm down, and then wait for either weather or Iran to give us that next leg in this corn market if it's there.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: But if you were afraid of selling ahead of this trade negotiation, that fear is now pretty much gone as it looks like China's not going to add corn to their balance sheet on imports here for this marketing year on old crop.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: Right, Mike.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: And the last three or five years in the corn market, we put her high in May there.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: So if you pull up that weather map there, Cade, um a lot of the corn belt there over the next week, like you're saying, I mean, that's a lot of rain.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's covering a lot of major production areas.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: And the region I'm really gonna be looking at is that Nebraska, Kansas area, as we're experiencing a lot of dryness there, and they're kind of on the edge of the system.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: So it'll be interesting to see if they actually can get some rain in the upcoming week.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: But nonetheless, I mean it's the time of the year to kind of put the high in the grain market.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll we'll we'll see if this sticks or not.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you can cover the Nebraska and the Dakotas with some significant rainfall, it might cut off some of the guys in North Dakota on finishing up some soybean planting from the folks we've talked to up there, being about done with corn, about half done on soybeans, give or take each side of that.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: But uh at this point, we both would really enjoy some of that rain over the weekend here.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: It won't make the crop, obviously.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's just got put in the ground, but it's gonna give us a very good start compared to what we've been seeing blow around uh as of late, anyways.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: So big market, big week for this uh this grain market, seeing a little bit of risk off after this, buy the rumor, sell the not so much a fact by the end of it, made it even a little bit easier to sell.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it's something to keep our eyes on going forward, I think, or just Iran and weather, which today was a significantly interesting day based on crude was up four bucks most a day.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And green markets did not care one bit.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Corn was down 10 cents plus most a day.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: So uh some divergence between the two there, which was a little interesting.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: The last 11 or so weeks, Sunday nights have traded pretty much solely Iran news straight for 11 weeks.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: So are we gonna see any more news this weekend out of that front?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I would imagine that Trump's gonna try to make some truth post over the weekend at some point about either the how the trade went and negotiations and how big of a win it was, or if he's frustrated, or Iran.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: I would assume he's gonna get on one of those two talking points, if not both, here at some point before the open Sunday night at seven.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: And right, the last, like you said, 11 Sundays there, we've seen you know, crude green on the open in the Sunday night, and normally we see buying in the grain.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll see if we kind of see the same thing Sunday after this large sell-off in the grains here to end the week.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Very much so.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, a few of the other talking points I I think I'm gonna be following here is just like you mentioned it before, May is a very seasonal time of the year to be uh taking some risk off the table for these grain guys.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: So continue to take a look at over the next couple months as we approach July 4th, kind of what what type of marketing you want covered?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what percent soul do you want to be by that point?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: And try to work out a plan on some levels that make sense for your business.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: So this kind of the time to shine for for these grain guys here uh from now until that time frame, just from a seasonal perspective.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: And a few of the big things I see moving that market is Iran and weather.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: So continue to keep an eye on that as well.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Anything else you're looking forward to here in the next coming weeks?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: No, Mike.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think just looking at weather in Iran is probably gonna be the most important thing in the next coming weeks.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Stock market was off pretty heavily today.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, pretty big risk off day after we had the stock market up over 7,500 on the SP.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So a big move there, a little bit of a correction here down 75 or so today.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: The US dollar was up.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Looks like we probably could get a rate cut instead of rate uh rate hike instead of rate cut uh by the end of this year.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: So some of that getting traded as well.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh inflation being a heavy talking point between both energy lately and uh beef being some of the major uh in inflection points there with inflation.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we did get some updates on that as well this week with just in hot inflation reports.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: So some things worth mentioning there.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: But please uh click the link on the description below to get our daily market commentary and any other marketing info.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we really appreciate you listeners.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to learn more about us at Professional Lag Marketing, please go to our website at professional.com.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Jaden.