Tuesday, January 20, 2026, 6:50 am

The markets were closed on Monday for the Martin Luther King Holiday in the US.  They opened back up last night for the overnight session.  Friday was a nice positive day for our markets.  Spot corn closed up 4 1/2, spot soybeans closed up 4 3/4, spot winter wheat closed up 7 1/2 and spot spring wheat closed up 2.  This morning corn, soybeans and winter wheat are negative with spring wheat on the positive side.  Oil closed up $0.26 on Friday at $59.34 per barrel.  It is stronger this morning with it now trading at $59.59 US.  Our dollar started out yesterday morning at $0.720 US and has trended higher since then.  This morning it is currently valued at $0.724 US.

With the turmoil in the world over the weekend and early this week being created by President Trump it is nice to see that our markets have not tanked this morning.  He seems to be on a mission to start a new world order with only specific countries being invited to his new world peace plan.  On the economic side he is once again using the threat of increased tariffs to bully his will onto what previously were allied countries with the US.  How this will affect our markets and the world economy as a whole going forward is most definitely yet to be seen.

I was watching an interesting video about world corn production and how the US fits into this.  They produce about 1/3 of the world’s annual corn production.  They also export about 40% of the corn that is imported into different countries.  Even with the recent record production years in the US world corn stocks are at their lowest since the end of the 2013-2014 crop years.  It is currently sitting at 23% which compares to 33% just 10 years ago.  We should also note that China is currently holding over 60% of the world corn stocks.  Both world and domestic demand for US corn remains strong.  The reality is that if production in the US was to stumble (much like it did in Eastern Ontario this past year) prices would most likely increase drastically!