It’s May 1, Iran sends a plan, and China is still on for May 13-14.

Grain futures opened firm last night, and at one point we traded sharply higher again, with Kansas City over $7.00. This morning, at just after 7:00 AM central time, Iran announced it had delivered a message through its intermediary Pakistan to end the war. Details are unknown but the stock market bolted higher with crude oil off over $2.00 on the news. Grains softened as expected, but still captured a bid, and as the night session came to an end, they were all trading in the green.

Yesterday, the U.S. House sent legislation over to the Senate for a 2026 Farm Bill. There is a concern that Democrats in the Senate will push hard to limit any change to the SNAP program and are looking to be tough with pesticide usage. One thing the bill was missing was the nationwide use of E15 blending. This still remains voluntary.

Subliminal support remains in corn and soybeans as May 1 comes, the US/China meeting in Beijing is still on for May 13-14. It’s possible we can start seeing goodwill buying from the Chinese in soybeans in the next 13 days, or maybe some of the corn export flashes we've seen of late, which mostly go to undisclosed destinations, may start to appear as China.

The delivery process last night revealed another 712 contracts for soybean oil were delivered, but they were all stopped by ADM, leaving soybean oil still higher by nearly $0.50 at the end of the morning session, even though crude oil had softened. The wheat deliveries have reduced to 245 contracts in Kansas City wheat and 312 in Chicago wheat. Meanwhile, corn and soybeans saw moderate deliveries relative to their open interest. The grain trade remains firm to start the month, making it difficult for bears to maintain their narratives as margin calls from earlier sales recommendations continue to mount. Grains are revealing that the world is looking to pre-buy grain a bit more for stocks than it has in the past four years.

Temperatures are moderating throughout the country with a very cool weekend ahead. The northern plains and the upper Midwest will see subfreezing temperatures. Dry weather continues down the upper Midwest and Northern Plains for the next nine days. The 10-day rainfall forecast for Kansas shows only a few light showers in the middle of next week, but meaningful rain remains absent. Corn planting is also now heavily delayed in Kansas, awaiting some hope of moisture before putting expensive inputs into dust, hoping for the bins to bust.

A correction day for cattle futures, but on the charts, you can barely notice it. Mostly end-of-the-month profit-taking from a vertical five-day rise of over $15 for live and feeder cattle futures. Yesterday’s cash feeder index jumped $ 2.67 and is at $ 372.47, with the April feeder cattle expiring at $373.75. Cash trade is mostly wrapped up for the week, representing how bullish the environment is, with most of the trade taking place on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday. 252-257 is where the bulk of the trading took place this past week.

Given the vertical rise of live and feeder cattle this week, support chart points are significantly below the market. June cattle have chart-based support at 243-245, while April feeder cattle have similar intra-day support values at 366-367. Mathematically, on measured move theory, June cattle are targeting 262, with August feeders likely trading in the 383-384 range, but could ultimately see the 393-398 range this summer. This is an aging bull market, so runaway values like those seen over the last two years are unlikely, but that still doesn’t mean we can’t reach new highs. 

Outside events seem to carry less effect on the cattle trade now on the known side (higher energy values fighting for the consumer budget, fears of a Mexican border opening), so a new outside event, similar to “it’s not the truck you see coming that hits you, but the truck that you don’t see coming” is what hedging with LRP’s and options are used for this environment.