Wednesday, March 18, 2026, 9:05 am

Sorry for the delay today.  Technical Issues.

Tuesday was a mixed day for our markets.  Spot corn closed unchanged, spot soybeans closed up 1 3/4, harvest soybeans closed up 10 1/2, harvest winter wheat closed down 7 and harvest spring wheat closed down 9 3/4.  In the overnight trade corn and the wheat sector are positive with soybeans mixed.  Oil closed up $2.03 yesterday at $95.53 per barrel.  It is stronger in trading again this morning with it now valued at $97.29 per barrel.  Our dollar has traded between a low of $0.729 US and a high of $0.731 US over the last 24 hours.  This morning it is at the low end of the range with it currently valued at $0.730 US.

Thankfully the soybean market mellowed out yesterday after having the limit down trading on Monday.  The soybean market did rally early in the day after President Trump stated that he is postponing the meeting with President Xi of China for 5 or 6 weeks.  He also stated that China is okay with this delay.  Later in the day the soybean market pulled back.  It was nice to see that new crop soybeans did close on the positive side.  One negative for soybeans was that the talk coming out of the weekend meetings between high level diplomats of the two countries did not mention any increased purchase of old crop soybeans.  Two of the different market commentators that I follow have mentioned that they see increased purchasers of old crop soybean of only 2 million tonnes not the 8 million tonnes that President Trump had previously talked about.

We should also note that President Trump has invited farmers and biofuel producers to a White House event next week.  It is widely expected that this event might include an announcement of the new biofuel target levels for the coming years.  Many rumours have this announcement being very supportive for both increased biodiesel and ethanol usage.  This would be supportive specifically for soybean and corn usage and therefore prices going forward.  We should note that the recent increased in crude oil prices is increasing the profit margin for both biodiesel and ethanol producers.

Winter wheat prices have pulled back with reports that Russia has increased wheat exports over the last month.  Their export price is pulling the world price of wheat lower and this has affected wheat prices on the CBOT.  This has occurred even with some increased weather pressures on the soon to come out of dormant US winter wheat crop.