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Sep 15 | Closing Market Report · Closing Market Report

• cmr260915 The September 15, 2026, broadcast of the Closing Market Report, hosted by Todd Gleason, outlines current commodity market movements, agricultural energy constraints, and harvest weather forecasts. Naomi Blohm highlights unexpected technical strength in soybean futures despite bearish USDA data, while analyzing Brazilian crop estimates and anticipated Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. Dave Chatterton details a severe degradation in global diesel inventories driven by concurrent international conflicts, pushing fuel prices to historic highs as the U.S. harvest begins. Finally, Don Day forecasts a persistent, week-long rain event across the northern Corn Belt that will stall early harvest operations before giving way to cooler, drier conditions in October. 01:41 Ag Markets with Naomi Blohm, TotalFarmMarketing.com 09:53 Ag Energies with Dave Chatterton, Strategic Farm Marketing 18:11 Ag Weather with Don Day, DayWeather.com 21:45 2027 Cash Rent Negotiations Webinar Thursday @ 11am Central --- Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report for the 15th of September 2026. I’m Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Naomi Blohm. She’s at totalfarmmarketing.com out of West Bend, Wisconsin. We’ll hear from Dave Chatterton today at Strategic Farm Marketing from right here in Champaign, Illinois. Dave will walk us through the agricultural energies, mostly about diesel fuel this time around, and the lack of supplies around the planet and what that means going forward. Then we’ll turn our attention to the weather forecast. Don Day will be here from DayWeather out of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Along the way, I’ll tell you about the upcoming this Thursday FarmDoc Daily webinar with Gary Schnitkey and Nick Paulson on negotiating cash rents for 2027. You’ll want to stay with us to learn more about all of those right here on Illinois Public Media’s Closing Market Report, online on demand at willag.org. announce: Todd Gleason’s services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension. December corn for the day at 5:35 and three-quarters, a settlement price up 2 and a half cents. The March at 5:15 and a quarter, 2 and a quarter higher, and May corn at 5:56 and three-quarters, up 1 and a half. November beans, 13:18 and three-quarters, up 14 and a half cents. January, 13:35 and a quarter, 15 higher. Bean meal up $9.90, the bean oil 23 cents higher, and wheat futures for the December soft red at 7:28 and a half, up 6 and a half. 01:41 Ag Markets with Naomi Blohm, TotalFarmMarketing.com Todd Gleason: Naomi Blohm from Total Farm Marketing at totalfarmmarketing.com now joins us from West Bend, Wisconsin to talk about the marketplace on this Tuesday afternoon. Hello Naomi, thanks for being with us. I appreciate that. Naomi Blohm: Thank you. Thanks for having me. Todd Gleason: Let’s start with today’s trade because there’s a lot of green on the screen today. I’m wondering whether you thought that was going to be the case. Naomi Blohm: We did start with the night session trading lower, and it didn’t surprise me to see two-sided trade action. Although I am a little surprised at the get-up-and-go that soybeans had as the day went on. The November beans at first just seemed like they were doing some very simple range trading. But as the day went on, they pushed through the 5 and 10-day moving average, found a few buy stops, and were able to finish about a nickel above that. We still have a bearish key reversal on the daily chart from Friday’s USDA report, but it was pretty interesting today that the market just chose to be strong and steady. Even though we had a soybean crush report that came out—and actually the August report was an 11th-month low, but that’s kind of normal this time of year because we have a lot of processors that idle plants for seasonal maintenance—that crush number came in at 205 million bushels. Traders were thinking it was going to be more like 211 million bushels. The market just kind of ignored that and instead focused a little bit on some technical buying today. I feel like it’s also just doing some range trade in the big picture. We’re waiting to see potentially what the Feds say tomorrow in terms of interest rates. Next week we’re already watching President Xi from China coming to the United States. If there’s going to be any additional trade news that comes from that, that might not only be supportive for soybeans but for the rest of the grain complex as well. Todd Gleason: Let’s start with tomorrow’s Federal Reserve meeting. The expectation is that the Fed will raise rates tomorrow. By how much do you suppose, and what impact will it have on the marketplace? Naomi Blohm: What we’re hearing is that the Fed is expected to raise the rate by a quarter point. Already we’re seeing the stock market edge a little bit lower. I’m looking at the mini Dow down about 400 points; it had been down about 500 points earlier. So we’ll see if that comes to fruition or not. How that might impact the grain markets would be if the fund traders or the big money traders out there decide to take a cue from the Fed announcement one way or the other, it could maybe incentivize them to stay in grains, or we might see some profit-taking hit the grain market as well. I recall about a year or two ago when interest rates were creeping higher, the funds kind of stayed out of the grain markets, and they put their cash in easier money markets where they could just get a quick turnaround. Of course, now the grain market has a little bit more of a friendlier story to it, so we’ll want to see if the funds just continue to hold these record long positions or not. Todd Gleason: Turn your attention to the wars in Iran and in Ukraine. The problems it creates for energy, diesel fuel in particular, and fertilizers as we head into the planting season for South America. What issues does that put forth and what opportunities might there be in the marketplace? Naomi Blohm: Those energy prices still just continuing to go higher. October crude oil trading near 106 today, up over 4 and a half dollars a barrel. Diesel prices well over $6 now. There was some talk that maybe Congress was going to start to eliminate diesel exports as a way to try to bring the price down. I don’t know if that’s the case or not. But I had a farmer from Iowa today say he did the math and it’s going to cost him $130 an hour to run his combine just on the cost of diesel. The cost is real and, even though you’re getting $5 corn, when you’re spending that much on diesel, that’s just hurting the farmers out there. It’s hard to be excited about $5 corn. We do want to keep an eye on the Middle East. If those energy prices stay high and continue to climb, it’s going to dip into farmers’ pockets and it’s something we absolutely need to be continuing to monitor on a daily basis. Todd Gleason: This morning, CONAB released its updated sets of numbers for the crop size in Brazil. This would be for the ’25-’26 crop, the August and September figures, so it’s not actually looking forward into the ’26-’27 just yet. Did those numbers show you anything of interest? Naomi Blohm: What I noticed was the trend of ending stocks. In August, for corn, their ending stocks were at 597. On the September report, it increased to 616. They’re trying to make it a comfortable amount. They actually reduced export demand, so I thought that was interesting. We’ll want to keep an eye on that because their domestic consumption continues to grow. On the soybean side, the big takeaway was the same theme where ending stocks were 323 million bushels last month and now are 336. They did just a slight reduction on exports. In general, it feels like they’re just trying to show old crop supplies are sufficient. But in the big picture, it still is going to be an issue for the world if South America has poor weather for the crop that they are just planting now. The weather watching will really start to begin as we get closer to Thanksgiving and Christmas. We want to keep an eye on South America. The world needs them to have a big crop, but on the balance sheet today, they showed that old crop supplies are good enough. Todd Gleason: Hey, thanks much. We appreciate it. We look forward to talking with you next week and on commodity week this Thursday. Naomi Blohm: Yes, thank you. Todd Gleason: That’s Naomi Blohm. She is with Total Farm Marketing, totalfarmmarketing.com. announce: You’re listening to the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media on this Tuesday afternoon. Find us online, listen to us on demand anytime you’d like at willag.org. While you’re there, peruse through our calendar of events. You’ll find that this Thursday morning at 11:00 AM, the FarmDoc team is hosting another in its webinar series. This one on cash rents for 2027 and the value of farmland. Gary Schnitkey and Nick Paulson will join myself in studio, with Jim Baltz behind the scenes. If you want to ask questions live of Gary and Nick, you can do so during that webinar at 11:00 AM on Thursday morning. You may register either by finding the link on the willag.org website or at farmdocdaily.illinois.edu in the webinar and events section. That’s Thursday morning, the farmland values and cash rents webinar. The theme music for the Closing Market Report is written, performed, produced, and courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer Tim Gleason. 09:53 Ag Energies with Dave Chatterton, Strategic Farm Marketing Todd Gleason: Each Tuesday, we take a look at the agricultural energies. Dave Chatterton is now here. He is with Strategic Farm Marketing in Champaign, Illinois. Hi Dave, thanks for being with us. Layout first for me how you have viewed the energy markets over the summer time frame, June, July, August, and into early September. Dave Chatterton: Yeah, Todd, certainly nothing to see with the energy markets of late, right? Of course I’m kidding. What we have seen is a continued degradation or decrease in the US inventory situation, not only in the US but globally. That’s in light of supply constraints coming out of the Mideast and the Black Sea, two wars going on concurrently. While we continue to get carrots on the stick and promises of peace deals and corridors, meanwhile, the fighting on the ground and destruction that we see continues to probably get worse, not better, in both cases. We’ve seen a ramp up here of late. If you look at the beginning of the summertime, we had US distillate inventories, which is the diesel fuel component, probably about 8 to 10% below the five-year average. Currently, we’re sitting 13 to 14% below that. Our situation has got worse incrementally across the globe where nations don’t produce. We’re pushing higher again today, crude up over $3 a barrel here. We saw a 108 plus print in Brent crude, an almost 105 print here in the US in the WTI. Within that, new highs today for ULSD or for diesel fuel. We’re sitting here on futures right now, diesel fuel 5.25, 5.26. We had a brief spike to 5.85 back in 2022 that we didn’t settle there, so essentially, you’re looking at all-time record highs here in terms of where we’re going to settle today. There is really no end in sight to when this inventory situation improves as we’re heading into the biggest demand period for diesel and for fuel oil of the year in the wintertime period. Todd Gleason: So two things that happen of course would be harvest in the Northern Hemisphere and then during the winter months, many homes use heating oil, a derivative of course. That causes some serious problems. The United States and nations around the planet have been tapping their strategic reserves as best we can tell. China as well to try to hold the line on energy. We’ve gotten to the point where we’re scraping the place where at least in the United States, Congress has mandated we cannot tap that strategic reserve any lower. I think there are 25 or 35 million barrels available. It just seems like there’s so much going on at this time that could influence the agricultural markets and the economy as a whole. How do you think things will progress going forward? Dave Chatterton: Unfortunately, I think we continue to probably see things get worse before they get better. Having said that, anytime that we’re talking about filling tanks, locking in fuel, budgeting or going out even to the first of the year into the spring, this stroke of the pen risk is really what we’re afraid of. In other words, out of the blue, some peace agreement is made overnight, it shocks the market, and all of a sudden we start to see oil start to flow again. It will certainly take a while for that flow to reestablish, but the futures markets trade the headlines, they’ll get ahead of themselves on the downside as well. Unfortunately, I don’t know that that’s going to be the case. We’re in a unique position here in the US where we actually produce enough crude that we’re a net exporter, and we actually have been setting near-record rates on our distillate exports here as well. The question for the wintertime is, how do we keep some more of that at home? For the near term here for fall, we saw the first ever $6 national diesel fuel price come on Thursday of last week and we’ve stayed above that value. Even red diesel at a farm level, you’re talking about a transport load pushing $40,000 to $45,000. The problem is I just don’t see where we’re going to get much better here in the near term. As we go into winter and these inventories get tighter, there’s going to be a greater and greater pull from nations. There was a story that just broke talking about Saudi Arabia notifying European customers of cancellation of their September and October crude cargo loadings due to the east-west pipeline being shut down by attacks through Yemen. We’re kind of in uncharted territory here, but definitely don’t see the supply increasing really anytime soon to solve some of these problems. Todd Gleason: The issue is the Black Sea, the Middle East, both the Strait of Hormuz and the other strait, as well as the issues related to Russia and Ukraine attacking each other’s ports and their diesel and crude oil production facilities. I do wonder what that means if anything for ethanol and biodiesel and the expansion or need for it to run at full capacity. Dave Chatterton: I think that need is probably already there. When you look at some of these cash crush margins in the Midwest for soybean processing plants, when you look directly at the biodiesel margins, things are pretty frothy. Ethanol margins have also improved; they’re not quite the eye-popping numbers that we see in the soy space, but they are good. The unfortunate problem here in the US from an ethanol standpoint is that as we see that retail gasoline price continue to rise, at some point we get the opposite effect of slowing demand. When we don’t have the gasoline to blend the ethanol in domestically, we rely on that export market. The export market looks to be on pretty good footing, but it is a little bit fickle back and forth. It doesn’t have the steady and consistent approach that we find here in the US. Things look relatively good, but not without a few challenges. Todd Gleason: Anything else before I let you go? Dave Chatterton: No Todd, I think you just have to be prepared every day. We’ve got a Fed rate decision coming this week as well, talking about the first interest rate hikes since 2023. I’m sure you’ve highlighted what’s happened in the global bond market. We have what we referred to as a sloshy overall macro market where a lot of money and capital is trying to move from one bucket to another to balance this whole macro situation of what’s happening with oil and energies, inflation, war, the bond market, and what that all means for our prices. Todd Gleason: Thank you much, I appreciate it. That of course is Dave Chatterton, he is with Strategic Farm Marketing in Champaign, Illinois. 18:11 Ag Weather with Don Day, DayWeather.com Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention to what the weather forecast looks like for the Corn Belt and the start of the harvest season. Don Day is here. He is with DayWeather in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Hello Don, how are you on this fine September day? Don Day: I’m doing wonderful. Todd Gleason: Tell me about the weather in the Corn Belt over the next 5 to 14 days. Don Day: Well, we’re going to see a very interesting setup. It’s a pattern reminiscent of what we had in parts of August where we have this very warm, strong high-pressure system centered over the central and south-central United States, and deep subtropical moisture rotating clockwise around the top of this high. We’re seeing a big surge of subtropical air work its way northward out of Central America into Mexico, then going into the southwestern United States, where they’ve already this week picked up some badly needed rain. That moisture is going to get sucked in around that high clockwise, and that’s going to bring a band of persistent rain and thunderstorms across the I–80 corridor. That’s going to stretch across eastern Nebraska, Iowa, northern Illinois, into Wisconsin, Minnesota, then into parts of the Great Lakes. Now, you go further south, closer to that high-pressure center, that rain gradient will drop off fairly quickly into southern Missouri, southern Illinois, southern Indiana, and southern Ohio. Todd Gleason: Okay, so how long does this stay in place? Because farmers at this point will be looking to get into the field to actually do some harvest, particularly in Iowa, Wisconsin, northern Illinois, and parts of Nebraska and the Dakotas. They’ll be worried that they aren’t going to be able to get in. Don Day: Yeah, and I think that worry is warranted because this is a pattern that’s going to likely go probably a week before we see it break up a little bit. Anything you can do in the short term to take advantage of it, do that, because it is going to be six or seven days of this wet weather. I do see it breaking after that, cooling off and getting drier. Todd Gleason: Have you been thinking longer term about what the fall looks like for the Corn Belt? Don Day: Well, we will see some cooler weather come in. This high that’s been so dominant is going to eventually break down, and I do see that last week of September into early October offering the opportunity for some cold fronts to come in. Those cold fronts will knock down temperatures, and you always have a period behind cold fronts where you get that drier Canadian air to come in that will make it favorable to get things dried out. Todd Gleason: Any worries that because we have been so very warm that we will turn very, very cold very quickly? Don Day: Don’t see that yet. Todd Gleason: That is good news. Thank you much, I appreciate it. Don Day: Thank you. 21:45 2027 Cash Rent Negotiations Webinar Thursday @ 11am Central Todd Gleason: That of course is Don Day, he is with DayWeather in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Joined us on this Tuesday edition of the Closing Market Report that comes to you from Illinois Public Media. Before I let you go for the day, one thing that you might want to do on Thursday… University of Illinois ag economist Gary Schnitkey and Nick Paulson will join myself for a webinar focused on farmland values and rental agreements for the upcoming 2027 crop year. They’ll present an overview of the current state of Illinois farmland values and rents, and discuss factors which will impact values and rent negotiations through the end of this October. That is the webinar which will incorporate all of the data from USDA and the Illinois FBFM records, as well as the professional farm managers in Illinois to provide a range of perspectives. You’ll want to join us at 11:00 AM this Thursday morning, Central time, for the webinar. You can find the details on the FarmDoc website at farmdocdaily.illinois.edu in webinars and events, or look in the calendar of events at willag.org. I hope you can join us Thursday, and again tomorrow for the Closing Market Report right here on Illinois Public Media. I’m Extension’s Todd Gleason.