Aug 14 | Commodity Week
This is the August 14 edition of Commodity Week.
announcer:Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason:Well, welcome to Commodity Week. I am Todd Gleason. Our panelists for the day include Naomi Blome. She's a totalfarmmarketing.com out of West Bend, Wisconsin. Greg Johnson is here from TGM, totalgrainmarketing.com out of Champaign, Illinois, the elevator operated by FS Grow Mark.
Todd Gleason:And Mike Zuzlow is here from globalcomresearch.com out of Atchison, Kansas. Commodity Week, of course, is a production of Illinois Public Media. It's public radio for the farming world online, on demand at willag.org willag.0rg. This week, the Illinois State Fair continues through Sunday and then next week we'll be watching Chip Florian company, the Pro Farmer Midwest crop tour heads off across, seven states. Try to try to stay up to speed on what they're actually finding in the field.
Todd Gleason:And then finally, the following week is farm progress show. That'll be in Decatur this year and Mike Zuzlow does plan to make the trip in. Thank you Mike for doing that. I look forward to having you on stage at the University of Illinois tent and I suspect you'll be talking to many other farm broadcasters while you're here too.
Mike Zuzolo:It's a great time of year. It brings back a lot of memories, brings back a lot of fond memories of starting in in the business and Will Radio being the very first one out there that took this poor sap of a man on and let him talk on the air. So that was really nice to be out there with you again, Todd.
Todd Gleason:Do you know what year it is you started with WIL?
Mike Zuzolo:9096. '96 with Charlie Lindy. I was filling in for Bob Utterback who was on the road trip. He was the Farm Journal economist. Couldn't make the one of the dailies, and, or maybe it was a commodity week.
Mike Zuzolo:I can't remember which. But, yeah, it was '96.
Todd Gleason:1996. Well, thank you much, and thank you for the service. We appreciate that here at Illinois Public Media. Naomi Bloem is with us as well at totalfarmmarketing.com. Hello, Naomi.
Todd Gleason:Thank you for being with us today. You're the newest one with us on the list, and Greg Johnson is here from TGM. Greg has been on
Mike Zuzolo:the air.
Todd Gleason:Do you know how long Greg at WILO by chance?
Greg Johnson:I really don't, but I do remember Charlie Lindy. So, whatever his last year was, probably a few years before that.
Todd Gleason:Okay. So back in the early, late early two thousands, late nineteen nineties, one of the two for you as well. So let's start, Naomi, with you. Since you are the youngster amongst the crew of us who have been working with WILL, what is your what is on your list of things that we ought to discuss today?
Naomi Blohm:Well, would say just keeping an eye on the soybean market. Of course, the USDA report had some very supportive tones to it, but we still need China to show up and buy some beans. So I'd like to do a little bit of a deeper dive on that.
Todd Gleason:Greg Johnson, what's on your list?
Greg Johnson:Well, all the farmers are asking me what the correlation is between crop conditions, percentage good and excellent versus final yield, because they're just having a hard time believing that we have a 188.8 corn crop out there. So that correlation, I think we can discuss that a little bit. This dry August, at least here in East Central Illinois, I don't know if it's that way everywhere, but what impact will that have on finishing up the corn crop and filling out the beans? And then as Naomi said, I think that US China trade negotiation is huge. The last time that, China did not buy beans from us, what kind of an impact did that have on not only the futures price, but the cash basis levels as well that fall.
Todd Gleason:And Mike Zislow on your list.
Mike Zuzolo:Yeah. Just dovetailing with the other two's great comments. I I think this is is a huge amount of deja vu with August when we didn't make that commodity demand low that I was hoping for at the July, August 1, it really started to feel like deja vu all over again in the August with this weather coming on now with the hotter, drier bias and and the wheat not being able to make a low, but the beans making one first. It just keeps rolling on and on as far as how similar this year is to last.
Todd Gleason:Okay. So, Naomi, why don't you recap for me the USDA report that came out earlier this week? And within that, of course, we might want to put some context to the CONAB numbers which were released earlier today too.
Naomi Blohm:Right, so for the USDA report, the big overview on the corn side of things, the USDA raised acres, they raised yield and they raised yield just an astronomical number. We're now at 188.8, up 7.8 from the USDA trend line number prior. This was the largest ever production and yield jump we've ever seen in an August report. The previous big yield jump was in 2016. They raised yields seven bushels then and production was up 600,000,000 bushels.
Naomi Blohm:So that was the showstopper, just this huge crop out there. On the soybean side of things, we had lower acres, but bigger yield. And the net result though, was that production for soybeans down from where we were expecting and that dropped ending stocks. Now the USDA did lower exports. And so that shows that they're aware China is not buying yet.
Naomi Blohm:So they're trying to keep the situation real, but it was a really friendly number for soybeans. Not a lot of big changes on the USDA report from South America, but for CONAB today, you know, they just, they're going to have a big crop and when you convert it to bushels, so thank you for that information that you had shared with us earlier, their August production number for corn in Brazil, 5,394,000,000 bushels up from their July number of 5.196. So we're still looking at a big crop in Brazil for corn that's getting harvested and coming to market yet to compete with our American products. And on the soybean side, still just big production numbers for soybeans out of Brazil. 6.234 is what the number came in at, up from 6.228 in July.
Naomi Blohm:So CONAB doubling down on what they have for production. USDA was very slow to do any changes on this most recent report, but we'll see if that'll become an issue going forward.
Todd Gleason:Always interesting to hear those numbers from Brazil in bushels and thinking about the size of their soybean crop being over 6,000,000,000 bushels larger than ours, but their corn crop about the same size as our soybean crop in that that 5,000,000,000 bushel range. Now, Greg Johnson, I would like you to talk about the USDA report numbers as it relates to the question farmers have been asking you. Does it correlate very well to crop progress reports? And tell me you looked up the long ago Farm Doc Daily on this particular topic level.
Greg Johnson:Well, I assuming that we have normal finishing weather in August and September, there is a little bit of a correlation there. It's not exact, and this year could be one of those years where it's not because, like I say, farmers that have been scouting their fields are finding, you know, the fields look nice, dark green from the roadside but when they get in, they see a few issues, you know, the bottom, the last one to two inches tip back, some uneven pollination due to some tassel wrap. It's certainly believable since we've had some extremely warm days and warm nights in June and July and now it sounds like here in August, we're going to get another return of hot hot weather and hot dry weather And like I say, here in East Central Illinois, the rainfall totals have been near record lows for the August, and we really don't have a lot of subsoil moisture from the June and July rain. So, you know, I guess I could see where this could be an outlier, where this may not exactly line up with the crop conditions, but we just don't know yet, I guess. We'll have to wait another thirty days.
Greg Johnson:We'll get the results from the first actual sampling from fields versus just infrared vegetative health index, farmer surveys, that type of thing. So this is the number we have to work with for the next thirty days. We can argue it or we can agree with it, but that's what we've got to work with.
Todd Gleason:Yes. The PharmDoc team, I think it was Darrell Good and probably Scott Irwin, as you suggest, made note that early on the crop condition tradings don't really mean a lot, and they don't correlate at all. However, the further into the season we get, the closer they get in July with the July numbers. They correlate fairly well actually with, what USDA generally finds in the size of the crop. Now Mike Zuzlow at globalcomresearch.com, you and I have talked about a commodity demand low a couple of times over the last two weeks on the closing market report.
Todd Gleason:First, can you define what you mean by that? And then tell me whether you think it might be in play this year or not.
Mike Zuzolo:Yeah. The the great questions, Todd. The the key with the commodity demand lows is kind of what you're picturing in your mind or what has been back in history, and it kind of does go back to where we were before the 9596 rally in corn and beans and how we had to, other than the 1993 weather market and the terrific flooding from the Mississippi River, we had, you know, periods, longer periods of very narrow trading ranges at the lower end of the five and ten year price action. And wheat is a great example. We're still dancing as of the end of this week, close to $5 wheat.
Mike Zuzolo:Last year's low, $4.93 and a half, takes you all the way back if you go below that to the major low made last year, which was also a five year low. And so wheat has been setting up narrowing ranges for the most part. And as a result of that, and the fact that the most significant tailwind or wind in the sail type fundamental factor we've had as a result of the tariffs has been this 10% decline in the dollar index. Interesting to note that the Brazilian real has now hit a one year high against the US dollar this week. And so all of a sudden, when you look at the global prices, even with the tariffs factored in, in corn especially, we're still cheaper even with the tariffs factored in.
Mike Zuzolo:And so we started to see that, and and USDA had to continue to drop their 24, 25 ending stocks number again this week. We I think in November, we were at 2,000,000,000 bushels, and now we're at 1,300,000,000. And for new crop, they introduced 545,000,000 more bushels of total demand in one month, and that really surprised me. But these all put together would suggest the market's been low enough, long enough that it is getting used to these cheaper prices. We're feeding bigger animals.
Mike Zuzolo:We're rebuilding hog herds in The US. We're rebuilding poultry herd poultry flocks all around the country and the world because of the the bird flu issues. And all of sudden, the demand is not breaking down or not backing down. So that was the idea, kinda like a 02/2004, 2005 time period.
Todd Gleason:So turning our attention to how USDA changed the supply and demand tables, particularly the demand side, Naomi. It increased feed and residual usage to 250 by 250,000,000 bushels. Ethanol went up by a 100,000,000 bushels, and exports went up 200,000,000 bushels. Are you satisfied with those numbers? Do you think they actually can be achieved?
Naomi Blohm:Well, I think if prices stay cheap, they can sure be achieved. So that 'll be the question going forward. It does seem to be commonplace that USDA will increase that demand when prices get cheap enough, when supplies get big enough, and they'll tweak and massage it as the marketing year goes on for the new marketing year. But overall, I mean, we do have decent ethanol demand right now. The USDA revised things, of course, a bit for the old crop.
Naomi Blohm:But in the big picture, the demand is there for ethanol. I think I read that the Corn Board was looking to lobby Washington to try to get E15 or E85 year round again, because we have this higher production. That might be something that would be really fabulous going forward. As far as exports go, yeah, absolutely. I think we are a country that we're able to properly store corn.
Naomi Blohm:We can keep it in condition and we deliver it on time around the world when people want it. So I do think that we will see the corn export number continue to inch higher. And I like the numbers that the USDA gave us.
Todd Gleason:E 15, that is exactly what the national corn growers and many of the state corn boards are actually lobbying the federal government for. I talked with the president of the NCGA earlier in the week at the Illinois State Fair. He happens to be an Illinois farmer, and Kenny Hartman reiterated that that was where they were headed and hopeful that the Trump administration might see things their way. Although there are headwinds that come out of the other side of that, which, of course, is the, oil industry that are not as happy about that. And it does take with the e 15 at least, to have a a different pump, that can manage that.
Todd Gleason:It's set up. If you see it you'll see it at at different pumps, and Casey's in particular will carry E15, but it's always at a different pump. It is usable in everything that's 2001 and newer, I believe. This all brings me to you. We've been talking, Greg Johnson, a couple of times over the past week about, basis levels going into the fall, and I want to talk about booking trains because if USDA is right and the feed and residual number and ethanol numbers are as good as they're expecting, you would think that an awful lot of trains would be booked, and it would be really hard to get one in the fall.
Todd Gleason:What are you hearing, and what are you having problems with trying to move corn this fall, if anything at all yet?
Greg Johnson:Not really, other than the fact that there's no demand for export beans at this point. Until China steps back in the market, we cannot export beans. And that's usually what we move in the fall. We, I say we, the Central Midwest, there's a lot of beans exported in the fall, that October, November timeframe is kind of our sweet spot for when China buys beans from us instead of South America. That may or may not happen, it's beginning to look like it may not happen this year.
Greg Johnson:If it doesn't happen, obviously, we can we can ship some corn trains, but there's a limited, you know, there's there's a limited amount of corn export business that needs to be done every week or every month. And so you can't, you know, double up the corn exports just because you're not shipping beans. So the way it's shaping up right now, unless we get a deal done with China in the next thirty days prior to harvest, if takes longer than that, this may not happen. Thirty days or less we could still see soybean exports out of The Gulf. If not, beans are going to back up into the Central Midwest, basis levels probably will get weaker, trains will be cheaper.
Greg Johnson:And even though the corn demand is very good, space is space. And so if elevators are storing more beans than normal, that leaves less space for corn. And so that has a spillover effect as far as weakening the corn basis. But the primary emphasis would be an immediate weakening of the bean basis if we don't get a trade deal done.
Todd Gleason:So the folks that are listening understand what size of an elevator, the facility here is, and how often you turn it, relatively speaking, what what the throughput is. It's not small. How how big is the elevator, and what's your draw area? It's 80 mile radius, 60 mile radius, something like that?
Greg Johnson:Yeah. We we store 12,000,000 bushels of grain here at the elevator.
Todd Gleason:Inside?
Greg Johnson:Inside. Yes. If if if we can't keep up and and ship enough out, we can put anywhere from two to 4,000,000 bushels of corn on the ground. We prefer not to put more than a million or so on the ground, but we have put 4,000,000 on the ground in the past. So that's our capacity as far as our draw territory.
Greg Johnson:We'll go as far east as the state line of Indiana, that's 45, 50 miles east. We'll get halfway to Decatur and then Decatur starts drawing from the West and then from the north, 30 miles north or south.
Todd Gleason:Okay. So a fairly large, facility. How often do you load trains?
Greg Johnson:Probably right now, we're loading, one and a half trains every week just to get empty. I would say we probably average a train a week. So a train is a and we load 100 car units, which is 425,000 to 440,000 bushels every week.
Todd Gleason:Okay. So just so everybody has an idea of of how much you actually move. It's a lot of grain. In in in context, I suppose it's a lot of grain. And and you're worried that, like yourself, many elevators will be full very quickly.
Todd Gleason:Basis level will break or they'll try to keep producers keeping things on the farm. So, Mike Zuslow, when that's the case, how should farmers manage the carry in the market that might be there so that they can take advantage of it, particularly when basis in the fall is breaking hard?
Mike Zuzolo:Yeah. That's that's a great question. I think this is where, as a person and an analyst that has been pushing harder on new crop bean sales than corn sales, one would I'd I'd have to ask myself the question, why were you doing that? And it's all because of The US stocks versus world stocks, Todd. And so that's important coming into harvest because we still have several competitors, Ukraine and Russia, out there that have not gotten their crop made yet in wheat and especially in corn in the case of Ukraine.
Mike Zuzolo:And they could lose yield just like we could lose yield. And so I don't have any problem above breakeven doing some selling of the carry into the July '26. If you can get profitable in the next fifteen to twenty days, the biggest issue I'm gonna have to work with because I've been so light on '25 sales is getting my off the combine bushels done. And this next ten days is gonna dictate for my clients, I probably talked to at least a dozen clients since a week before the report and especially since the report, almost all of them universally saying it's just not there. What what the VIIRS satellite imagery that Greg was referring to was that picture snapshot taken on July 27 with U S which USDA always tells us when it stops.
Mike Zuzolo:It's just not the same crop, in my opinion, because of the opinion of the producers on both sides of the Mississippi River, whether it's too wet or whether we've lost test weight or whether we've got grain fill issues and kernel depth issues that are starting to present themselves. And this is right along the Greg's area of what he picks up grain for, say, Petersburg, Indiana, you know, Covington, Indiana, clients in those areas telling me that very strongly right now. So my mindset is, okay. If I can get the beans to lead this market higher and we can get up to ten seventy five area, that old high from earlier this year on the weather, then getting some off the combine corn bushels sold is is, I think, gonna be a good idea. I would be looking then at the back end to see where the carry was.
Mike Zuzolo:Notice Thursday, though, the September corn moved and and the back end did not. The spread woke up a little bit. I wanna see if that doesn't continue because in my opinion, we still have very razor thin old crop stocks. I wanna see if that carry gets pushed back into the front end, especially with September corn in delivery. So but the key here is is if you're looking at the marketing on a world stocks basis, you really wanna be looking at what China, Ukraine is looking at here in the next thirty days because they could make or break the difference between a trend change or not on the supply demand fundamentals.
Mike Zuzolo:Because even after this week's report, even after one eighty nine yield, our ending stocks worldwide in corn are still the lowest since 2012 because we didn't go over last year's ending stocks of two eighty three. So it's a real interesting dynamic, one I don't really remember ever seeing before having such a tight world ending stocks number, such an ample US ending stocks number, and as I said, wheat trading near five year lows and corn barely being able to hang above $4 in the in the new crop.
Todd Gleason:Those two different sets of stocks, Naomi, make it hard for producers really to think about it because they look out into their fields, and they see so much. Not as much as what USDA is telling them, but they see so much, and the numbers are overwhelming. But on the global side, not as large. How are you helping them deal with what has to come off the combine at this point?
Naomi Blohm:Yeah, so we're doing a few things. For those who are concerned that their basis is getting wider, they are looking to lock in basis contracts and then looking to hopefully see some sort of a technical bounce on charts to lock in the December corn futures price later on as the weeks progress. We also have folks who are making cash sales now and then looking at re ownership strategies with call option spreads out to July. We have people who are capturing carry by selling March calls or May calls on corn to try to capture some time value erosion if this market continues to trade sideways. So there's multiple ways that you can participate in the market depending on your budget, depending on your delivery means, depending on your storage capabilities, and you just have to sit down and know the risks and rewards and returns to what you're doing.
Naomi Blohm:But with this crop out there, back to being over 2,000,000,000 bushels, it's just gonna keep the market most likely for corn in a sideways trading pattern where my thought would be support would be $3.85 on December futures, resistance at $4.00 5 in the short term on December futures, maybe four ten until we get a better idea for sure what is out there or not. Because right, as we've been talking, there have been some potential pollination issues and we'll get a better handle on that hopefully with the pro farmer tour as they're actually in the fields. Then the next USDA report will have boots on the ground to get an idea for yield as well. We'll also be keeping an eye on the funds. If we start to see the fund traders exit their hefty short position, to me that would be a cue of the market trying to find a bottom.
Naomi Blohm:That's what in hindsight happened last year. We were dealing with this perception of 2,000,000,000 bushel carry out. All of a sudden the market starts creeping higher and higher and higher and the funds were taking profits on short positions and buying them back. A lot of moving parts here, a lot of great conversation and reminders that keeping an eye on not only US production, global production, keeping an eye and being aware of when South America is able to deliver on their products as well. There's a lot of competition on corn right now in a sense for end users around the world to purchase from.
Naomi Blohm:I think The US will gain a lot of that business, but we definitely have competition to deal with.
Todd Gleason:Why or how, Greg Johnson, do you think that the trade was able to discern, and this is only based off the reaction after the report, that not only yield would be larger. I don't know if it managed the one eighty eight plus, but that also it would go up in acreage. I mean, we did put an extra billion bushels on this on the supply and demand table, and we didn't just drop like a rock for corn. In fact, we recovered fairly fairly quickly at this point. How did the marketplace manage that?
Greg Johnson:I think historically, the, acreage number in the August report is not based off of FSA data. To some extent, it is, but, a lot of times they wait till September, even October before they truly fully incorporate the FSA data, the the data that farmers report to the FSA as far as actually how many acres of corn, beans, and wheat they did plant. This time, USDA said that they fully used the FSA data. Maybe their computers are getting more efficient, whatever the reason, and for that reason there is a correlation, very strong correlation between number of acres reported by the farmers and the eventual planted acreage number. So the USDA went ahead and incorporated that FSA data in this report, and that's why we came up with the extra 2,100,000 acres of corn and 2,500,000 less acres of soybeans this time around.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. But what I wanna know is how the trade knew it. I mean, it feels like the trade must have known something Oh. Because a billion bushels is an enormous figure.
Greg Johnson:Well, the the acre the yield, you know, people had talked you know, Stonex had their 188 out there. I mean, so they're, you know, based on the crop conditions, know, there were people talking about a much higher yield, but I'm not sure I heard a lot of people talking about an extra 2,000,000 acres of corn and 2,000,000 less acres of beans. I think this is a game changer really for the soybeans. 2,000,000 less acres of beans, they raise the yield by a bushel, but if we stay dry, we could give that bushel back and all of a sudden the soybean situation is very tight.
Todd Gleason:A game changer, Mike Souzlo, but only if it is a demand low led by China being back in the marketplace.
Mike Zuzolo:To a degree over the long term, yes. But I would also say and this is, you know, some of the reporting that U of I has done as well. But when I went back and looked at some of the analysis back in 2018 2017, 2018, I was using an export figure of 1,700,000,000.0 in my supply demand tables. That's 2324 number also, but that matches up really nicely because that's what USD took our exports down. So they've been tracking exports down.
Mike Zuzolo:Well, I think what would hurt the soybean market the most in the more immediate term, Todd, is if we heard anything about EPA and a policy adjustment. Big oil is very unhappy about the import changes on biodiesel, biofuel that the the EPA is proposing, and we're gonna be hearing a lot more about that right around harvest, suspect, right around the September, October, November time period. That was a big boon to the soybean market earlier in this year. It helped support us when the supply demand fundamentals looked really tough. That's baked into the cake now since the USDA moved with the EPA proposal, I think in the July report.
Mike Zuzolo:That's really what I'm honing in on as far as the most negative feature, even more negative maybe than US China in the near term between now and and harvest post harvest.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. This is because they were able to import Malaysian palm oil to some extent, but mostly used cooking oil into The United States to make renewable diesel that was coming into the West Coast and was also meeting their carbon me needs and the sustainable aviation fuel, possibilities in the future eventually in a in a different way. And it depends a lot on where those refineries are, and these were on the West Coast. Refineries are on the Gulf Coast as well. So we'll see how all of that plays out.
Todd Gleason:Let's get a final word now from each of you. I think Naomi Blome at totalfarmmarketing.com in West Bend, Wisconsin. We'll start with you. What's your final word on this August 14 commodity week?
Naomi Blohm:Yeah. I would say in the short term, just keep an eye on sideways, quiet range trading for the grain markets. A lot of the bearishness for corn has likely been priced in, but we don't have a bullish catalyst yet. On the soybeans, we have some bullish fundamental support with lower production, but we still need China to show up and buy something. Until we do, we might see that soybean market trade in a little bit of a sideways range.
Naomi Blohm:If you are a cattle producer tomorrow at 11:30, Secretary Rollins is making a big announcement about cattle and Mexico and, the border. So we wanna keep an eye out for that. That might've been part of the reason why cattle markets had a little bit of a sell off today. We just don't know for sure what she's gonna say, but, that comes out at 11:30.
Todd Gleason:And Greg Johnson from TGM, totalgrainmarketing.com. Your final word?
Greg Johnson:For farmers that have on farm storage, your bins are gonna be gold this year. But don't just put it in there. Don't set it and forget it, as the old saying goes. Capture that carry. I fully expect a post harvest rebound.
Greg Johnson:We saw one last year. I think we'll see one again this year. But the cash carry already in corn is $0.49 from the cash bid in the fall to the cash bid in July. So you could lock that $0.49 in today and say that your bins are worth $0.49 And then if we get a $0.30 rally in the futures on top of that, those bins are definitely going to pay for themselves. There's $0.68 carry in cash beans from cash fall to cash July prices.
Greg Johnson:So your bins are going to cover, a lot of expenses, a lot of the cost. And, so just keep that in mind, and and be ready to capture that carry on some post harvest rallies.
Todd Gleason:And finally, Mike Zuzlow at globalcomresearch.com out of Atchison, Kansas.
Mike Zuzolo:And number one, like Naomi, watching the screwworm, announcement by the secretary of agriculture along with The US, Russia negotiations and what I would call a summit, especially as it pertains to the dollar and crude oil markets and whether that translates into a better wheat market or a weaker wheat market. Number two, the the clean WASDE report for soybeans, clean meaning supply demand numbers made sense. The fact that we do have some crop weather issues out there that maybe would present ourselves the second half of this month would suggest pretty strongly beans the leader to the upside in the short term. Thursday, we saw August expiration. Did that pull back did that pull back was that created by August?
Mike Zuzolo:Let's see if September can retake that strength with drier, hotter weather. If we can get through that 10/25 and a half high that August made, that's the twenty six week move twenty six week moving average resistance level, Todd. If we can get through ten, twenty five and a half, technicals could turn positive, gives us maybe another leg up. And with that extension of that bean corn ratio, beans pull the corn higher. That's kind of the pathway of, of upside potential that I'll be watching for.
Todd Gleason:Thank you all. I appreciate it. Commodity week, of course, is a production of Illinois, a public medium. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand @willag.org. Our thanks go to our panelists this week, Mike Suzlow, Greg Johnson, and Naomi Blum.
Todd Gleason:I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleeson.
