North Gower Grains

Thursday, June 18, 2026, 7:20 am

Wednesday was a nice positive day for our markets.  Harvest corn closed up 6 1/4, harvest soybeans closed up 2 3/4, harvest winter wheat closed up 16 3/4 and harvest spring wheat closed up 13 1/4.  In the overnight trade corn, soybeans and winter wheat are now negative with spring wheat still on the positive side.  Oil closed up $0.74 yesterday at $76.01 per barrel.  It is weaker this morning with it currently priced at $74.54.  Our dollar started out yesterday morning at $0.714 US and has trended mostly lower since then.  This morning it is currently valued at $0.708 US.  This is the lowest value our dollar has had since early April of 2025.

Soybeans traded higher for the third consecutive day yesterday with rumours that China has purchased up to 500,000 tonnes of US soybeans for the current crop year.  So far any of the daily export announcements out of the USDA have not shown any Chinese purchases however they continue to announce new purchases to unknown destinations which usually end up being to China.  We all need to remember that China has historically tried to be a low cost purchaser and with the pullback in prices over the last month this has made US soybeans more economically priced for the world market.

Winter wheat prices led our markets higher yesterday as the US market continues to deal with supplies that will be at a 61 year low.  Total production this year is projected to come in at 1965 levels.  Even though US winter wheat is too expensive on the world market the domestic market is setting the price this year.  On the world market currently a dry hot period in France could be having a negative effect on their production this year. 

Weekly ethanol production in the US decreased by 0.5% last week down to 1.102 million barrels per day.  At this production level the US ethanol industry would utilise 5.65 billion bushels of corn over the marketing year.  This is right in line with current USDA projections.  Blender demand increased over the week with exports down for the week.  Bottom result was that stock levels were steady week over week.

The peace deal seems to be moving forward between Iran and the US.  This is keeping oil prices lower this week and should be considered a bit of a drag on prices for both corn and soybeans due to their reliance on the oil market in setting prices in the biodiesel and ethanol markets.