Top Tips on a Thursday
Next week could be huge for grain prices – with the potential for a lot of volatility in either direction.
For starters, USDA will release its hotly anticipated acreage and quarterly grain stocks reports on June 30. El Nino conditions will continue to have major implications both in the United States and abroad. And phosphate pricing and availability continue to concern many industry experts.
What does it all mean? Keep reading for several action items to consider this week!
- Could El Nino weather conditions in South America spark a rally in the U.S.?
- Seasonal phosphate demand will come with a market that is very short supply.
- PLUS: Mind your risk tolerance before making your next round of marketing decisions.
Naomi Blohm, Total Farm Marketing
“Get focused for potential price volatility next week. Tuesday brings the Acreage Report and Quarterly Stocks report from USDA. U.S. weather forecasters are suggesting high heat may enter the Midwest. July 1 brings a review on renewing the USMCA agreement. Traders will likely square up positions not only for end-of-month trading, but also end-of-quarter trading. And don’t forget about a three-day holiday weekend to celebrate the 4th of July, with markets closed next Friday.
While it may not occur every year, history does often suggest that if there is a short-term price rally for grains into 4th of July weekend, often times, seasonals suggest that the rally is a selling opportunity (barring a legitimate weather threat in July). Be mindful of potentially making cash sales should that rally occur. Managed money fund traders seem to be, for the moment, committed to selling corn, soybeans, and wheat positions, and if they continue, sometimes they continue to be sellers until August.” – Naomi Blohm, senior market adviser, Total Farm Marketing
ACTION: Stay focused for the potential of a short-term rally heading into the 4th of July weekend.
David Delaney, Itafos
“Fertilizer imports to the U.S decreased during the 2025-26 crop year, first as a result of the tariffs instituted last year, and recently due to the conflict in Iran. The impacts from the war are likely to persist for the remainder of the calendar year and perhaps into 2027 as supply chain disruptions centered on the Strait of Hormuz will take time to revert to normal. Despite these issues, phosphate prices in the U.S. are currently among the lowest in the world, which suggests that imports are unlikely to increase much, especially as global trade flows remain disrupted.
“It is extremely difficult to predict how fertilizer prices will change on both an absolute and relative basis given the large number of variables impacting them, including supply chain issues, government policies, crop prices, soil quality, etc. That said, we would note that U.S. phosphate prices are among the lowest in the world, trading at a significant discount to other high-demand markets such as India and Brazil. Also, higher costs and lack of availability for key inputs, most notably sulfur, have resulted in much lower global phosphate production, so any incremental, seasonal demand will come with a market that is very short supply.” – David Delaney, CEO, Itafos
ACTION: Stay mindful that phosphate supplies may remain tight heading into 2027.
Matt Bennett, AgMarket.Net
“From our survey we are forecasting corn acres to dip slightly and soybean acres to be up a bit, but we think that fluctuation will only be around a half-million acres.
“We felt all along that corn acres would be lower due to fertilizer prices and some areas being a little big laggard in getting planted due to excessive moisture. But what complicated coming up with a number, so-to-speak, was the rallying corn prices this spring. December corn rallied to a high of $5.06½. We feel that price mostly kept some acres in corn in talking with the growers that we deal with.
“We feel like the price probably latched onto a fair amount of corn acres still. We believe there’s been a reduction and we feel like there’s some areas where farmers backed off on some corn acres. At the same time, we feel as if some may have picked up a few corn acres due to the price rally.
“The bean market rallied substantially [during this spring] as well. We were looking at November beans rallying all the way up to $12.14. It’s some of the best prices to sell beans that we’ve seen the last couple of years. We feel like bean acres were liable to grow some, especially with input costs. We just don’t know if there’s going to be as big of a switch as what we originally thought.
“We expect wheat acres to be down from one year ago. We did have a rally in prices, but for the most part over the last year, we’ve really struggled to keep wheat prices elevated. We feel as if U.S. wheat acres are going to continue to dwindle somewhat if we don’t see some sort of a price rally.” – Matt Bennett, co-founder and CEO, AgMarket.Net
ACTION: Expect limited grain acreage movement.
Bryan Hansel, Holganix
“The challenge farmers are facing today is that many conventional regenerative practices, while valuable, simply weren’t designed to solve short-term input cost pressures such as the recent fertilizer shortages and price hikes. Practices like cover crops and no-till can deliver significant benefits over time, but they typically don’t reduce fertilizer requirements quickly enough to address the challenges growers are facing today.
“In our experience partnering directly with farmers, when you reintroduce a full spectrum of biology into the soil, the soil responds. That creates opportunities for growers to improve nutrient efficiency and make different fertilizer decisions today, not years from now. As farmers look ahead to future growing seasons, the real opportunity is finding ways to maintain productivity while reducing reliance on costly inputs. Biology has an important role to play in helping growers achieve that outcome while building healthier, more resilient soils over the long term.” – Bryan Hansel, CFO, Holganix
ACTION: Using regenerative ag practices reaps longer-term benefits but won’t immediately improve nutrient efficiency – you may have to explore other short-term options.
Dustin Johnson, AgYield
“It's been a heavy corn market as the July 2026 and December 2026 contracts have reached new settlement lows. Many headlines will cite the phrase ‘rain makes grain.’ With that, funds have piled into shorts and have been a large portion of price discovery.
“At the pace corn values fell in early June, one would assume it came as a result of underwater longs forced to liquidate, especially with the rate of acceleration. While that was likely the case for many long side participants, the rising open interest in managed money shorts shows that the real volume came on fresh speculative selling. In fact, total shorts in that MM category grew from 162,554 contracts on May 26, (using futures and options combined) to 326,059 contracts on June 16. July corn fell over 43 cents/bushel in that same window of time!
“New crop soybeans have declined as well but at a slower pace. Funds are still net long beans (as of June 16) despite selling through June. Interestingly, Nov26 soybeans are at their highest value to corn at 2.61x (SX26/CZ26 ratio). This is remarkable given old crop soybeans have lost a lot of value to new crop and crush margins have declined with falling oil-share.
“Ultimately, the decision making boils down to the grower’s individual circumstances and risk tolerance. For example, a grower may want to slow down or even back off from selling/marketing grain if he or she is within payment zones of crop insurance since that payment would essentially ‘take over’ the downside coverage if prices were to fall, allowing for a better marketing opportunity if prices rebound. We saw this type of scenario form in mid-2020 for a lot of growers that were assumingly in an insurance payment and well below the PLC floor price (at the time $3.70). It became clear that along with marketing, they would have technically come out better on another 50 cent selloff rather than a 50 cent rebound.
"Today with many growers taking larger insurance policies due to the higher subsidy levels, there are many that we would project to be near or in an ECO payment for corn already with the promise of a growing PLC payment projection on further price declines. Just running the scenarios on these plus some sales would place many growers in this same scenario where they would do better at $3.50 corn than at $4.00 corn! This is obviously backwards of a natural market setup but that is the math of multiple increasing revenue streams in a bear market.” – Dustin Johnson, director of hedging operations, AgYield
ACTION: Review insurance scenarios before booking additional sales.
Luiz Fernando Gutierrez Roque, Hedgepoint Global Markets
“With El Nino on the horizon, U.S. soybean and corn producers should closely monitor the development of the 2026-27 South American crop, which will begin planting in September 2026.
“Although the phenomenon is typically beneficial for crop development in the southern part of the South American continent with a history of high yields in southern Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay extra attention must be paid to the northern half of the continent, as El Nino typically brings below-average rainfall to key producing regions in Brazil, including the state of Mato Grosso (Brazil’s largest soybean and corn-producing state). Consequently, potential production losses in north-central Brazil could lead to significant reductions in Brazilian and, by extension, South American production, particularly for soybeans, even if yields remain strong in other regions of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.
“Given this, futures prices in Chicago may react positively, rising in response to a potential reduction in South American supply (the world’s largest soybean-producing region). This could present opportunities for U.S. producers not only through higher prices but also through increased international demand for U.S. soybeans in the face of a potential decline in South American export supply.” – Luiz Fernando Gutierrez Roque, market intelligence coordinator, Hedgepoint Global Markets
ACTION: Keep an eye on the South American weather market and its potential opportunities.
Chase Koopmans, The Grain Ledger Rundown
“Corn is cheap, in demand and waiting. The charts still belong to the bears until December corn can string together closes back above the $4.50–$4.52 area. On the bullish side, demand is the quiet hero. The export book is running at a 20-year high for this point in the season, which means USDA’s export figure likely gets raised in the months ahead — a real, building block of support under prices.
“On the bearish side, the crop outlook offers nothing to worry about right now — wet where it needs to be, ratings climbing, no extreme heat yet — and a stronger dollar plus the prospect of bigger than expected acreage on June 30 keep a lid on rallies. Corn is genuinely cheap and genuinely in demand, but it’s stuck waiting for a reason to move. We’re getting closer to July 4, the tail end of the seasonal window, and the next catalyst is the June 30 report.” – Chase Koopmans, Iowa farmer and writer, The Grain Ledger Rundown blog
ACTION: Don’t sell weakness here at the lows – mark your level for if the report or the weather sparks a rally.
Jason Gehler, Blue Line Futures
“The corn market has been trying to hang in there but is struggling in the $4.40 area for December futures. The market lacks a reason to move up since weather conditions have been favorable, funds flipped to a short position when grains stopped paying attention to the Middle East situation and it has been difficult to rely on the USDA for bullish news.
“USDA Acreage has the potential to shift the landscape, but I think we need at least a 2 million acre cut. We could easily revisit $4.70 or $4.80 in December corn. There’s no weather premium in the market. So, inexpensive calls are probably your best option going into this report if you’re looking to capture any sort of upside we might have. Any rally is likely going to be short-lived. We probably don’t rally a ton unless we get a major shift in the weather.” – Jason Gehler, senior market strategist, Blue Line Futures
ACTION: Consider buying inexpensive corn call options that could gain in value if USDA’s Acreage report brings a bullish surprise. If you're having trouble sleeping at night because of potential downside risk, buying puts may be a wise investment, although look to hold them for a short-term move as I believe any further downside price action would eventually be erased.
John Zanker, Farmer’s Keeper
“Funds are still long all three legs of the soy complex, which has helped soybeans weather recent selling better than corn. It's difficult to see much possibility that the soybean acreage number will be price-supportive, but we certainly can't rule it out. We've seen a sizeable break from the spring highs but there is still some value left for the new-crop contracts. Hopefully, the Chinese will continue to put some new crop bushels on the books, which will help keep the bears at bay as we move toward August.
“Given the possibility for a negative USDA report on Tuesday, we recommend being very heavily sold/hedged on the 2026 crop. For example, an increase of 2 million acres in soybean plantings could add another 100 million bushels to production, potentially pushing projected ending 2026-27 stocks above the 400-million-bushel mark. That will likely put a “10” in front of soybean futures at some point, barring a weather scare of note.” – John Zanker, senior analyst, Farmer’s Keeper
ACTION: Buy August soybean $11.10 puts at 11.5 cents or better, which may provide some decent cheap protection on unsold bushels.