Grain futures extend losses from Turnaround-Tuesday.

Grain futures are lower again today after corn, beans, and wheat all struck a first trading day of the month high, culminating in a seven-day recovery lift. Warm weather is on the way, with planting getting underway next week in the Southern and Western Midwest. Dryness is forecasted to continue across the W Plains over the next 10 days, with the 11-15 day window offering the prospects of rains.

US/Chinese political tensions are building, as House Speaker McCarthy meets Taiwan’s president today, and China has promised retaliation. No one knows what this means, but China has not been a buyer of corn this week and has disappeared from soybean purchases for a while. Meanwhile, Brazil is improving its relationship with China as Brazilian president Lula visits Beijing next week. China is Brazil’s biggest buyer of agricultural goods, and Lula wants to build on that relationship.

Argentina is expected to announce its soybean/dollar program today, with implementation occurring on Monday. Argentine crushers are anxious for the program in hopes of securing additional old crop soybeans to blend off with the poor new crop quality. It’s hoped that the new soybean dollar program provides farmers incentives to sell 5-7 MMTs of beans over the next month.

The EU has extended its duty-free grain imports from Ukraine until June 2024 as the war rages on. This decision has caused Poland’s ag minister to resign amid the rising anger from Eastern European farmers to the import of low-priced grain. Eastern European grain/soy oil stays cheaply priced and trades at large discounts to the CBOT, facilitating enlarged grain movement.

The US forecast has the entirety of the Central US entering a 6-8 Day period with temperatures rising to allow for early fieldwork in early corn seeding. However, snows in the Northern Plains end this week, and it’s anticipated that with the quick warm-up, it will take up to three weeks of snowmelt before soils start supporting large machinery.

Live cattle turned soft yesterday after a firm early start as most commodities went into sell mode after the poor manufacturing job numbers released at 9:00 a.m., and now the important employment numbers out this Friday morning. Recession concerns resurfaced, trimming gains after cattle made a spectacular price recovery rise the prior week. Negotiated box beef again saw significant gains, with choice jumping $2.85 with select $3.77 higher. New demand is needed to push cattle prices through the prior 2014 record highs, and the quick warm of the Midwest has retailers wanting to stock up.