Overnight erratic grain trade ended with a firm outlook.

After a two-sided overnight trade, the morning grain trade is firm. Firming Brazilian bean and meal prices are setting soybeans up to challenge last week’s highs. A three-day weekend is ahead, and the weather is full of uncertainty. Black sea weather forecasts are uncertain as the GFS tries to offer rain chances in the week 2 timeframe. The euro model does not see it yet.

A new Farm Bill is set to start debate in the US House Ag Committee. This debate may stretch on for days, with funding being the topic. Republicans have the committee votes to pass the Farm Bill, but it’s unknown where their speaker, Johnson, will bring the bill up for a full House vote.

New driving fundamental stories are lacking, other than the markets continue to trade on reduced Black Sea wheat supplies, disagreements over the size of the South American crops that are seeing premiums improve in Brazil, and the prospects of Preventive Plant or acreage switches occurring on corn in the next 10 days.

Weather for the Central US will have some seeding opportunities next week as a five-day stretch of dry weather is offered. E Midwest corn/soybean seedings are making solid progress this week, but too much rain will drop across the Delta and the E plains, leading to new flooding concerns. No extreme heat is offered, with temperatures averaging near normal. Given recent soil moisture through Iowa and Nebraska, early US crop rating condition reports will come in high.

Live and feeder cattle futures closed higher on Wednesday, with this morning’s opening uncertain. Yesterday afternoon, news headline stories reported another individual contracting avian flu in Michigan. The trade has pretty much digested the story's potency to reduce consumer demand, yet we could see market reaction given the sharp gains we have seen in the cattle market over the last seven trading days.

Yesterday, some initial cash trade got underway, with live sales in the north quoted at $192, up $2 for the week and at a record high. Small numbers reportedly sold $1 higher in Kansas at $187, but most cattle owners passed on those bids and offered showlists at $190. These would be record-high prices of trade for the South. The trade is anticipating a friendly Cattle on Feed report on Friday afternoon; this means a neutral report could be deemed slightly negative on Monday morning and produce profit-taking. Today’s action will be one of digesting avian flu again. We will see how well the trade has digested consumer demand on headlines of avian flu.

Here are the averages and ranges of estimates: Total on Feed: Avg. -0.8%, ranging from -2.1 to +0.5%; April placements: Avg. -6.1%, ranging from -13.5 to +4.5%; April marketings: Avg. +9.8%, ranging from +8.6 to +10.7%. That huge range in estimated placements represents a vast divergence of thinking on whether heifers bought the past month went into feedlots or towards rebuilding cow herds.