Wheat

December Chicago wheat settled Friday at $7.84, up 23 1/4 cents on the day and 84 3/4 cents for the week. That is both a contract high and a three-year high. December Kansas City wheat closed at $8.44 1/4, up 71 3/4 cents on the week, and December spring wheat added 12 cents to $7.69 1/4.

Wire reports that Putin determined the peace talks were at a dead end and he intended to escalate sent December Chicago wheat limit-up 45 cents, and the exchange widened limits to 70 cents for Thursday. SovEcon cut its estimate of Russian August wheat exports another 300,000 metric tons to 1.9 million tons, against 4.5 million a year ago and a 5.0 million average, and puts more than 95% of Russia’s combined Black Sea and Sea of Azov export capacity out of action; SovEcon’s Andrey Sizov called it unmatched in the history of the modern grain market, worse than the 2010 Russian export ban or the first half of 2022.

Russia’s Rostov region declared a state of emergency Friday over port closures and grain piling up on farms, and Oxford Economics has flagged as much as 86 million tons of export capacity at risk across the two countries.

Watch whether importers keep paying up for Australian and Argentine origin, because that is what would turn a logistics disruption into a durable price story. With RSI near 79 and Tuesday’s positioning snapshot already stale, a sharp two-way trade is possible on any credible sign a grain corridor reopens.

Corn

December corn settled Friday at $5.36 1/2, up 3 cents on the day and 28 cents for the week, a contract high and a three-year high. The rally has been counter-seasonal and it has been steady, with buyers stepping into every intraday setback.

The Pro Farmer Crop Tour, released after the prior Friday’s close, pegged the national corn yield at 173.2 bushels per acre and production at 15.344 billion bushels, against USDA’s August figures of 180.7 bushels and 16.013 billion. The Pro Farmer estimates erase roughly 670 million bushels of supply. On Monday the USDA published their Crop Progress report cutting corn conditions 3 points to 57% good/excellent, well past the 1 point the trade expected and 14 points behind last year.

The Pro Farmer Crop Tour has a long track record. StoneX’s Mike Castle notes the corn estimates have landed below USDA’s August corn yield in 9 of the last 10 years, by an average of 4.44 bushels. The direction looks right, but the actual magnitude is probably overstated. That puts the focus squarely on the September WASDE.

Demand may become a soft spot. Corn export sales hit a marketing-year low last week at 31,200 metric tons, down 87% from the prior week, though new crop sales ran a solid 1 million tons. Watch the refinery exemption decision alongside the WASDE: reports have small refinery exemptions possibly doubling to 1.8 billion gallons, which could pressure corn and soybean oil demand, and the administration is weighing roughly 500 million gallons of added 2027 quota to offset it.

Soybeans

November soybeans settled Friday at $12.88, up 20 cents on the day and 48 1/2 cents for the week, a contract high and the best level in about two and a half years. December meal closed at $348.90, up $23.10 on the week and a more-than-two-year high.

Crop Tour called a record bean crop at 53.3 bushels per acre and 4.572 billion bushels, above USDA’s 52.7 and 4.519 billion, and the market shook it off inside two sessions, and chose to focus on demand instead.

Private exporters reported 182,000 metric tons of beans sold to China on Friday plus 226,000 tons to unknown destinations, and China has been adding purchases ahead of Xi Jinping’s expected September 24 visit to the US. USDA has 2026-27 exports at 1.66 billion bushels, and Pro Farmer notes that if China takes the expected 25 million tons, that leaves 741 million bushels for every other buyer, which would be the lowest non-China total since 2013-14.

Crush margins are strong and meal is being pulled along by the feed grains, with Marex’s grain desk flagging beans and meal approaching an RSI of 80. Watch whether Chinese buying holds through the Xi meeting, and watch the refinery exemption ruling; the American Soybean Association says the larger exemption figures could cut biomass-based diesel demand by roughly 500 million gallons and cost farmers about $1 billion.

Sugar

October ICE Sugar No. 11 settled Friday at 17.56 cents, down 63 points on the day and essentially flat against the prior Friday’s 17.61. Thursday’s 18.19 close was the high-water mark before Friday’s 3.5% break, so the week was a round trip.

Friday’s reversal tracked the dollar. New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivered hawkish remarks at Jackson Hole, and StoneX’s Mike Castle noted the dollar erased the prior week’s losses while CME FedWatch swung to roughly 60% odds of a 25-basis-point hike in September. Sugar is the most FX-sensitive of these four markets, so that shift alone can account for most of the day.

Managed money ran its Sugar No. 11 net long to 198,017 contracts as of Tuesday, up 59,404 on the week and the largest net long in at least a year, which left the market crowded on one side going into a dollar rally.

The fundamentals stay split. India cut its production estimate to about 30.6 million metric tons, among the lowest in six or seven years, and allowed duty-free imports on August 20, which knocked ex-mill prices from a peak near 67 rupees per kilogram to 54 or 55; Brazil is the only realistic source and cargoes take 40 to 45 days.

Watch the dollar and any confirmation of actual Indian import volume; either could move this market further.

During the initial invasion in 2022, wheat reached a record high of $14.25¼ as traders priced in a scenario in which no wheat would move through the Black Sea.4 But by July 2022 the UN and Turkey had brokered the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a maritime corridor deal wherein Russia pledged to not strike Ukrainian grain shipments.5 By early December front-month Chicago wheat futures retraced roughly 50% before closing out the year at $7.92 per bushel.6

Front-month Chicago wheat, daily settles, January 2021 through August 27, 2026. The shaded band marks the Black Sea Grain Initiative. Source: Bloomberg.

Both sides of the Black Sea are stuck

The facts on the ground today support the idea that the worst-case scenario may play out after all. There has been a significant escalation in violence as both sides are targeting ships and shipping infrastructure. Ukraine cut its 2026/27 grain export forecast by 12%, after Russian strikes on the Odesa port hub.7 Three deep-water ports that handle about 90% of Ukraine’s farm exports have stopped operating.8 August grain shipments came to 590,000 tons, which is roughly two-thirds behind the typical expected pace.9

Russia’s grain shipments are stuck as well. SovEcon, the Moscow agricultural consultancy, projects Russian wheat exports of 3.0 to 3.4 million tons in August against a five-year August average near 5 million.10 Three grain terminals at Novorossiysk, a complex that ships about 25 million tons a year, shut down after successful Ukrainian drone strikes.11

In 2022 the market had a relief valve. At the outset of the war when Ukraine faced a blockade Russia was still shipping wheat. Then came the Black Sea Grain Initiative and Ukrainian grain shipments started up again.

The escalation now cuts both ways, and while we hope that there are diplomatic efforts being made, there is no public report of negotiations pertaining to a new grain corridor. With the diplomatic offset missing, we believe the market is back to pricing in the 2022 worst case scenario. In 2022 it never became a reality, but that anticipated reality is unfolding now.

Ukraine’s 2026/27 figure is the midpoint of a 38-to-40-million-ton range: Russia’s August exports the midpoint of 3.0 to 3.4 million tons. Sources: SovEcon via The Moscow Times, Ukraine’s agrarian policy ministry via Reuters, UkrAgroConsult.

The bear case

Still, it is important to keep in mind that there is a difference between supply driven price rallies and availability shocks. The market is wrestling with the latter.

None of the grain has disappeared. The world has plenty of wheat. A large portion of that wheat is stuck in Russia, and local Russian wheat prices are tanking. Class 4 wheat, the mid-protein grade Russian farms sell into the export channel, has fallen to 11,000 to 12,000 rubles per ton, about $140 to $150. Russian wheat still quotes near $230 to $235 per ton FOB, short for free on board, the price of grain already loaded aboard a ship at the export port.12 The domestic-FOB price spread has nearly doubled over the past year, pointing to the fact that export demand has fallen off a cliff.13 Food wheat inside Russia is down about 18% since June, to 11,025 rubles per ton, and in some regions has fallen below the cost of production.14

A surprise corridor agreement, a lull in the port strikes, or a workable war-risk insurance fix, could unlock the supply. Analyst Allison Thompson, writing in Agweek, put it plainly: if terminals reopen and Russian wheat keeps reaching buyers through alternate routes, the market can remove the premium just as quickly as it added it.15

Managed money, the fund category in the CFTC’s weekly Commitments of Traders report, was net short 25,328 Chicago wheat contracts as of August 18, meaning funds held that many more short positions, bets on lower prices, than long ones.16 A meaningful share of this week’s move is funds buying back those sales. Once the short base is covered, the rally needs a fresh bid to keep going.

What it means for an allocator

Wheat has spent three years as the oversupplied, low-drama corner of the grain complex. The front month sits about 50% above its September 2025 low of $4.95 and still 49% below the March 2022 record.17 It has become an event-driven position with a genuinely two-sided distribution. In our view, current conditions argue for sizing the exposure appropriately given the volatility. The 2022 analogue is instructive at both ends. Prices went to a record on fear, then gave most of it back with a diplomatic solution.

What we’re watching

Three things: vessel traffic entering Odesa, whether the Novorossiysk terminals restart, and the Russian domestic-to-FOB spread. On the last one, watch for domestic prices to rise relative to the FOB price. This would suggest that exporters are back in the domestic market, bidding up prices to ship grain out.

In the near-term the price chart, in our view, appears inviting to speculators looking to trade momentum and we expect to see net longs reported on the COT Report soon. At the same time, if a deal is struck, the shorts may pile on quickly, jumping on the opportunity to sell wheat at what today amounts to 3-year highs.

Still, significant infrastructure damage on both sides suggests that shipping volumes may be slow to recover, even after the shooting stops.

And if the shooting doesn’t stop soon…then we are likely watching the worst-case scenario unfold.

Corn

December corn settled at $5.08 1/2 on Friday, up 5 cents on the day and up 25 1/4 cents on the week. The contract hit a 2.5-year high and posted a technically bullish weekly high close. Corn first poked above $5.00 Wednesday night, its first trip there since mid-May.

The Pro Farmer Crop Tour was most responsible for the bullish sentiment. Scouts sampled more than 3,000 fields across 7 states and kept finding the same problem: fewer ears and smaller ones than the crop’s healthy look from the road suggested. Pro Farmer pegged the national crop at 15.344 billion bushels on a yield of 173.2 bushels per acre, well below USDA’s August estimate of 180.7. This is the widest discrepancy between the USDA’s August WASDE projections and the crop tour estimate in at least 20 years.

Chip Flory, who led the tour’s western leg, put it plainly: “Something went wrong with this crop where it determined grain length in particular.” The USDA has already trimmed 2026-27 ending stocks to 1.653 billion bushels, about 10% of expected use, which leaves little room for more yield loss.

Money managers (the large speculative funds the CFTC tracks each week) bought roughly 55,800 corn futures through Tuesday, lifting their net long position to 181,692 contracts. That’s a fast rebuild, though still well under May’s peak near 344,600. Friday’s close above $5.00 came after that data cutoff, so the funds were likely still adding into the weekend.

Watch the September WASDE. USDA crews start their own field sampling in the coming days, and the tour has typically come in below the government’s number. If USDA’s September yield moves toward 173, supplies could tighten further and prices may find more support; if the cut disappoints, an overbought chart could invite profit-taking. StoneX’s Arlan Suderman expects demand to drive cash prices from here, and with the tour over, fresh bullish fuel may have to come from exports and ethanol rather than the field.

Soybeans

November soybeans settled at $12.39 1/2 on Friday, up about 3 cents on the day and up 47 cents on the week, another bullish weekly high close.

China buyers kept showing up. On Friday morning alone, USDA announced flash sales (large daily export sales the agency must report within 24 hours) of 712,000 metric tons of soybeans to China and another 720,000 tons to unknown destinations. By Standard Grain’s count through Tuesday, China had booked roughly 5.6 million tons of new-crop US beans, about 22% of the 25 million ton goal outlined by the White House. Friday’s China sale pushes that past 6 million.

Domestic demand is running just as hard: NOPA members crushed a July record 216.65 million bushels (crush is the processing of beans into meal and oil), and soybean oil stocks fell to a nine-month low.

Supply news actually leaned the other way. Pro Farmer estimated the bean crop at 4.572 billion bushels on a 53.3 bushel per acre yield, above USDA’s 52.7, with scouts calling soybeans the bright spot of the tour. That estimate landed Friday after the close, so the week’s 47 cent rally ran on daily pod counts, China’s buying, and the crush. Funds bought about 42,700 contracts through Tuesday, taking their net long to 151,782.

Watch the EPA’s small refinery exemption decision, expected by the end of the month. Exemptions would let small refiners out of their biofuel blending obligations, which pulls less soybean oil into renewable diesel and biodiesel. That prospect knocked soybean oil down 183 points Friday, and in our view it could stay a drag on crush demand and margins. The bigger date is September 24, when Presidents Trump and Xi meet. The $17 billion annual ag purchase agreement from May is still unproven, and any progress could add another leg to export demand. If the flash sales go quiet, this rally may have to lean on a smaller-than-expected crop instead.

Wheat

September Chicago wheat settled at $6.81 1/2 on Friday, down 1 1/4 cents on the day but up 6 3/4 cents on the week. Kansas City hard red winter wheat ended the week at $7.56 1/4, up 2 cents, while Minneapolis spring wheat jumped 20 cents to $6.98 1/4.

The trade’s focus remains on the Black Sea. Russia and Ukraine together supply more than a quarter of world wheat exports, and the two have spent a month striking each other’s ports. Standard Grain’s Joe Vaclavik reported that more than 97% of their combined Azov and Black Sea grain export capacity is now offline. SovEcon cut its estimate of Russia’s August wheat exports to 2.2 million metric tons, against a typical 5 million for the month, and consultancy ASAP Agri warned Ukraine’s full-season wheat exports could fall to 5 to 10 million tons from 14 million last year. Russian insurers are refusing to cover grain vessels, calling the risk of loss close to 100%, per Marex’s grain desk.

Buyers are adapting: Indonesia is booking Australian wheat, Bangladesh is pulling from Romania, and some importers have inquired about North American supply. Even so, funds remained net short 25,328 Chicago wheat contracts as of Tuesday.

The market has rallied for three weeks with speculators still leaning short.

Watch what happens if the ports reopen. Vaclavik made the point all week: grain is piling up inside the Black Sea region, and that supply could flow back into world markets quickly if hostilities subside, which may be why wheat rallies keep stalling.

On the other side, Ukraine’s government has flagged a significant risk that its farmers skip winter wheat planting this fall, and it warned world prices could rise sharply if Black Sea supply stays offline. The risk runs both ways, and positioning suggests the market hasn’t picked a side.

Sugar

October Sugar No. 11, the world raw sugar benchmark, settled at 17.61 cents per pound on Friday, up about 6% on the week and its highest close in more than a year.

India moved the market. On Thursday the government allowed duty-free imports of 1 million metric tons of raw sugar through October 31, the country’s first sugar imports in nearly a decade, after domestic prices hit records near INR 54,000 to 55,000 per ton, up roughly 40% in a year. New Delhi also capped how much sugar bulk buyers can hold into the festival season.

Brazil is adding to supply concerns with Center-South sugar production down 12.4% so far this season as mills favored ethanol for most of the year.

Money managers have turned bullish. Funds swung from net short 87,188 contracts on August 4 to net long 138,613 on August 18, their largest net long in at least a year.

Watch whether the rally feeds its own correction. Higher prices are already pulling Brazilian mills back toward sugar: Czarnikow’s Pedro Mizutani told Reuters the firm will raise its Center-South production forecast to 39 to 39.5 million tons, and Hedgepoint went further, projecting a 3 million ton global trade surplus for 2026/27 and calling 17 to 18 cents hard to justify. Its own sugar desk halves that surplus to 1.5 million once India’s imports are counted. India’s actual import bookings (the application window runs through August 28) and El Niño rains in Brazil’s September-to-November harvest window could decide which view wins.

After a move this fast, some giveback would not surprise.

To be certain, there is plenty of sugar in the world. As late as May, the USDA was projecting a production surplus with ending stocks reaching 44.4 million metric tons.4 For context, this would mark the second consecutive year in which production exceeds usage.5 That is a fundamentally bearish dynamic.

It’s no surprise that the trade has maintained a net-short for the first seven months of the year. What is somewhat surprising is how fast the market has flipped to a net-long.6

Even so, a bullish narrative has been building, albeit slowly.

For our regular readers you’ll recall that we’ve been keeping an eye on two major stories:

1. India export restrictions

2. Brazilian ethanol crush

India and Brazil are global sugar juggernauts. Combined they represent 41% of global production and 59% of global exports.7

India is the smaller of the two, accounting for 16% of global production and ~5.5% of global exports.8 On May 13th this year, India announced an outright restriction on sugar exports.9

Prices rallied into the first part of May, then reverted into a downtrend even after the restriction landed. Taking Indian exports out of the market was not enough to spook the bears, and the trade began adding to the short position straight through June.10

Then in July, reports began circulating that India may scrap its 100% duty on imported sugar.11 The news suggested that record high domestic sugar prices were pressuring leaders in New Delhi to come up with solutions.12 It’s one thing for the market to lose Indian exports; it’s quite another if India becomes an importer.13

In Brazil the focus has been on the ethanol crush. Much like how we in the U.S. process corn for ethanol, in Brazil the mills crush the cane for ethanol. Given the jump in energy prices, mills have been incentivized to crush more cane for ethanol and make less sugar.14 Season to date through July, milling reached 313.21 million metric tons, up 2.1% year over year, while sugar output fell 12.4% to 16.92 million metric tons and ethanol production rose 16% to 16.34 billion liters.15

Still, this is not new news; the market has been following this story closely for some time. In our view, there is a bigger story brewing and the market may only just now be beginning to price it in. That story is El Nino.

El Nino’s Impact on Sugar Cane Production

El Nino is here, and forecasters expect it to be a strong event.16 Quick reminder: El Nino is the warm-water side of the ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation). The oscillation has to do with the yin and yang cycle of sea temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. Those temperatures historically have had major impacts on global weather systems. The more extreme the sea temperatures, the higher the potential for more extreme weather.17

In the sugar-growing regions of Brazil, that extreme weather has shown up as excess moisture. The Center-South cane belt is already experiencing above-normal rainfall which is being attributed to El Nino.18

The timing matters.

Sugar output is measured in kilograms per metric ton of cane.19 That output varies based on the accumulation of sucrose in the cane stalk. When the plant experiences mild water stress (not severe drought, but a controlled reduction in moisture), it shifts its metabolic priority from vegetative growth (producing more stalk and leaf mass) to storing energy as sucrose in the existing stalk tissue.20 When the plant has abundant water the opposite occurs, and the cane keeps growing vegetatively, producing more stalk volume and leaf mass. Stalk volume is largely water and fiber, not sugar.21

Therefore a lack of water stress means a reduced amount of total recoverable sugar from the cane harvest. Brazil’s mills report that number as ATR, short for açúcar total recuperável, or total recoverable sugar: the kilograms of recoverable sugar in a metric ton of cane.22

Both excess moisture and drought have negative impacts on sugar cane production. Whereas it is the above-normal rainfall that hampers Brazilian production, it is the adverse dryness that impacts Indian production.23

The chart below overlays previous strong El Nino cycles over the front-month ICE No. 11 sugar price continuation chart.24 The record is mixed. In 2015/16 sugar ran from 10.7 to 22.5 cents, up 111% into September 2016. The 2023/24 event carried price to 27.1 cents in October 2023, a 12-year high. The 1997/98 cycle went the other way: 11.2 to 12.4 cents into October 1997, then down to 7.1 cents by September 1998. Front-month settled at 17.55 cents on August 19, the highest since May 2025, which in our view leaves room for more weather premium if this event tracks either of the last two.

The Counterweight

Final production numbers for the ‘26-’27 crop year are not yet in the books, and the analyst estimates are all over the map. The latest figures from the USDA (from the May Circular) forecast a 1 million metric ton surplus.25 Green Pool (an Australia-based independent sugar and ethanol research firm that has been publishing global sugar supply/use balance estimates since 2011) published its latest guess on July 29th projecting a 3.3 million metric ton deficit.26 That is a 4.3 million metric ton spread between two credible shops on the same crop year, and it tells you how little anyone knows about the damage done to the balance sheet so far. And after a rally this size, we think the market may have gotten ahead of itself. That happens in commodity markets, particularly when there is rampant short covering as we have seen in the ICE No. 11 contract.27

For an Allocator

Sugar prices historically have had low correlations to both stocks and bonds. Going back to 2012 (the year we launched the Teucrium Agricultural Fund Benchmark Index) front-month sugar futures have exhibited a -0.033 correlation to the US Aggregate Bond Index and a 0.127 correlation to the S&P 500.28 The long sugar thesis is heavily dependent on weather, and weather doesn’t care about P/E ratios or 30-year yields. Watch for three prints as we enter Q4: the Center-South numbers UNICA publishes every two weeks, Brazil’s cane industry group, and specifically the ATR print,29 NOAA’s monthly update to the Oceanic Nino Index (ONI), the sea surface temperature gauge of El Nino’s strength,30 and whether New Delhi issues a duty-free import tender.

In the near term, be mindful of the potential for a “buy the rumor, sell the fact” trade pattern on news from India. Rumors of a tender for 1 million metric tons of duty-free sugar are a bullish fundamental factor that might already be priced in.31 If India issues that tender, it could counterintuitively lead to selling.

Bottom Line

In our view what matters from here is how much sucrose ends up in the cane, and that is not knowable until the Center-South mills report further into the fourth quarter. Until then, putting aside a potentially healthy near-term pullback, we think the market may continue pricing in a weather premium.

A Mild Winter, for Now

Bitcoin traded at $64,354 on August 17, 49% below the record $126,251 set in October 2025. Ether at $1,894.98 is 61.8% under its August 2025 high.1 The total crypto market cap was $2.1 trillion at the end of the second quarter, down $304.8 billion from the first. That’s a third straight quarterly decline.2

CoinGecko puts the cycle low at $60,861 on June 7 and calls this drawdown “the mildest on record so far.” In the 3 prior cycles bitcoin bottomed 81.6% down in January 2015, 83.6% down in December 2018, and 76.7% down in November 2022.3

Bitcoin is more than 10 months past its peak. Cantor Fitzgerald puts the average peak-to-trough interval across those cycles at 384 days, which lands the comparable low in late October.4

Most investors seem willing to ride it out.

US spot bitcoin ETFs took in $35.2 billion in 2024 and another $21.3 billion in 2025. Farside’s daily estimates roughly $4.8 billion in estimated outflows through August 14 of this year. For context, cumulative net inflows since launch still stand at roughly $52 billion.5

The selling stems from mining and treasury companies, under pressure from lower prices and debt obligations.

MARA Holdings, the Nasdaq-listed miner that operated as Marathon Digital until 2024, sold 15,133 BTC in March for $1.1 billion to repay convertible notes. Cango, a Chinese auto financing platform that became one of the largest listed miners after entering the business in November 2024, sold 4,451 BTC in February for $305 million to pay down a bitcoin-collateralized loan.6

Poolin, once the largest bitcoin mining pool in the world, filed for bankruptcy in July. SBI Crypto, the mining arm of Japanese financial group SBI Holdings, shut a pool holding 2% of network hashrate on July 31.7

Michael Saylor’s Strategy holds 843,775 BTC at an average cost of $75,476 and has been a net seller since late June. It sold 3,588 BTC in early July for $216 million to fund preferred dividends, then skipped purchases for 5 weeks while raising $544 million in equity.8 Its stock traded at a 24.4% discount to the value of that bitcoin on August 17.9

The silver lining is the view that the forced selling due to the balance sheet pressures may eventually exhaust itself. For that however, the market will need to see signs that winter’s end is near.

A Thaw in the forecast?

There are a number of developments we’re tracking that may signal green shoots ahead of a crypto spring and at the front of the line is the CLARITY Act Vote.

CLARITY Act Vote

Finalizing the legislation would remove the legal and regulatory uncertainty hanging over the industry.

Senate Banking advanced the bill 15-9 on May 14, and the floor needs 60 votes against 53 Republican seats. Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on August 8, teeing up a procedural vote for the week the Senate returns in September.10

Federal Reserve Rate cuts

Lower interest rates lead to looser business conditions which may provide some balance sheet relief for the miners and treasury companies. Additionally, it may entice some money sitting in cash to redeploy in risk assets. However, market participants shouldn’t hold their breath for a cut. At the July meeting the Fed held the target range at 3.50% to 3.75% by a 9-3 vote. All 3 dissenters wanted a 25 basis point increase. Three are three meetings remaining in 2026.11 We’ll be watching those closely.

New Ways to Make Money

Watch for staking payouts and crypto inclusion in 401(k) menus to bring in new money.

Bitwise’s Solana fund pays a net staking rate of 5.84% as of August 9, and Solana ETFs have drawn $1.13 billion since launching.12 Fidelity filed on August 11 to stake up to 100% of its $898 million ether fund and pay the rewards out quarterly in cash.13 In our view a fund that pays something incentivizes and investor to hold even through a drawdown.

Long-term investors may soon have another way to access crypto prices. The Labor Department proposed a rule on March 30 that gives 401(k) fiduciaries a six-factor due diligence process that could make it easier to include alternative assets. That process covers performance, fees, liquidity, valuation, benchmarks, and complexity, and presumes prudence if they follow it. The rule is asset-neutral and it should largely remove the litigation risk that has kept crypto off plan menus. Roughly 721,000 plans and more than 90 million participants fall under it. Comments closed June 1, and the department is aiming to finalize by year-end.14

Ground Hog Day in September?

In our view investors should be wary of the ground hog. So far, the winter has been relatively mild, and yet the probability of Springtime green shoots appearing anytime soon is low. Without a Fed cut and absent the passage of the CLARITY act, there is no clear catalyst for a near-term thawing.

The Senate missing the September cloture vote on the CLARITY Act, would in our view, might be akin to the Ground Hog seeing it’s shadow.

Failure to pass the CLARITY act would continue to weigh on prices and cause the forced selling to continue. In that case we’d expect the market to be looking at a deeper, prolonged winter. There is room to the downside. Recall prior cycles bottomed 76.7% to 83.6% down, and bitcoin is only off 49% from its high.

A deeper selloff will be a test for ETF investors who so far have been largely unwilling to part ways with their holdings. Do they have what it takes to survive the winter?

Time will tell.

Corn

December corn settled at $4.83 1/4 Friday, up 11 1/4 cents on the day and 21 1/4 cents on the week. Most of that came Wednesday, when the contract jumped roughly 20 cents on the August WASDE.

The USDA cut the national corn yield to 180.7 bushels per acre, under the 182.4 average trade guess. Planted acreage however was revised higher, up 1.4 million acres on farmer certification data. With increased acreage the total production projection rose to 16.013 billion bushels.

The market looked past the bigger crop and instead focused on the demand side: exports up 75 million bushels in both old and new crop years, and new-crop ending stocks down to 1.653 billion. StoneX’s Arlan Suderman called the new balance sheet “snug” and notes corn export inspections are running 25% ahead of last year’s pace. Funds had lightened up into the report, cutting their net long by 18,946 contracts to 125,875 as of Tuesday, modest next to this spring’s peak near 345,000. There may be room to add if the yield holds up.

The Pro Farmer Crop Tour runs Monday through Thursday, with scouts pulling samples across 7 states and tour estimates due Friday afternoon. It’s the first objective field data of the season; USDA’s August number came from farmer surveys and satellites. Tour results near 180 could keep the demand story in charge, while a stronger showing may push December corn back into its old range.

Wheat

September Chicago wheat settled at $6.74 3/4 Friday, up 22 cents on the day and 35 cents on the week. Not to be outdone, the September Kansas City wheat contract added 33 3/4 cents Friday to close at $7.54 1/4.

The focus is on the Black Sea. Ukrainian drones hit Novorossiysk Wednesday, damaging two grain terminals and halting a third at Russia’s largest grain export hub. Sovecon cut Russia’s August wheat export forecast to 3 to 3.4 million tons, the smallest for the month in a decade, while Ukraine’s own August shipments are running roughly 75% below last year with its main ports effectively closed. USDA trimmed combined Russian and Ukrainian wheat exports by just 2.5 million tons in Wednesday’s report; Suderman thinks that “could end up being a fraction of the eventual result.” Traders appeared to have been caught offsides, adding 8,530 contracts to a Chicago net short that stood at 33,400 on Tuesday, right before prices jumped. It stands to reason that a good part of the rally through the end of the week was due to short covering.

Watch for truce headlines. A Thursday report that Ukraine offered to halt attacks on civilian Black Sea targets knocked wheat off its highs within minutes, and Russia had dismissed the idea by Friday. The war premium could leave as quickly as it arrived if there is a breakthrough in negotiations. That said, with US production pegged at a 56-year low and funds still short, dips may find buyers.

Sugar

October Sugar No. 11 settled at 16.60 cents per pound Friday, down 0.22 on the day but higher on the week and holding near its highest levels since last summer. The contract traded under 15 cents as recently as late July.

Managed money did something it hadn’t done in at least a year: flipped net long.

Funds swung from 87,188 contracts net short to 43,584 net long in the week ended Tuesday, August 11, a reversal of more than 130,000 contracts. Sao Martinho says persistent rain is diluting sucrose content in Center-South cane and should limit this harvest’s sugar production, USDA cut its US sugar production forecast for a second straight month to 8.95 million short tons, the lowest since 2019/20, and Brazil’s July sugar exports fell 16.6% from a year ago. Thailand’s KSL is bracing for a super El Nino, sees the country’s cane crop shrinking, and forecasts sugar near 17 cents in 2027.

Watch UNICA’s next Center-South report for confirmation the sucrose slide is real, and watch El Nino: the US Climate Prediction Center puts better than 90% odds on a very strong event this fall and winter, and 69% odds on a historic one. A position built this fast could unwind just as fast if Brazil’s numbers surprise the other way. Friday’s lower close is a reminder.

Soybeans

November soybeans settled at $11.92 1/2 Friday, up 10 1/4 cents on the day and 16 1/4 cents on the week. The quietest market of the four, and yet still grinding higher.

China bought US soybeans nearly every session this week: flash sales of 136,000 metric tons Tuesday, 244,000 tons Wednesday, 125,000 tons Thursday and 136,000 tons Friday, all new crop.

Standard Grain’s Joe Vaclavik pegs China at roughly 21% of its 25 million-ton purchase commitment. State-owned traders are doing nearly all of the buying, with private importers sidelined by tariffs that make US beans uneconomic, so hitting the full target may get harder as state storage and crush capacity fill.

The WASDE Report was neutral for beans. The yield projection was trimmed to 52.7 bushels per acre but acreage was revised higher. Total production is now projected at 4.519 billion bushels, which netted out against usage would result in a 320 million bushel carryout. Funds sold 23,415 contracts through Tuesday and remain net long 109,109.

Watch for private Chinese buyers to show up, or not, ahead of Xi’s expected Washington visit next month. Suderman expects the state buying “will likely go away when no longer politically expedient.” Next week’s tour pod counts and the last stretch of August grain-fill weather could decide whether this crop gets bigger or smaller from here.

The August WASDE answered the season’s biggest question: the first survey-based corn yield came in at 180.7 bushels per acre, down 2.3 from July’s weather-adjusted trend. A revision to planted acres helped offset most of the gap, and production still edged higher.

The supply cuts came from demand.

USDA raised corn exports 75 million bushels in both crop years, dropped new-crop carryout 92 million below the average analyst guess, and took old-crop stocks below the lowest estimate in the Bloomberg survey. The corn season-average price forecast rose a dime to $4.50. We remain in Stage #1 of the Golden Grain Cycle, with prices near cost of production, and demand keeps eating through the cushion.

CORN

NASS’s first objective yield survey put corn at 180.7 bushels per acre, 2.3 below the July projection. Harvested area rose 1.2 million acres to 88.6 million, though, so production actually ticked up 13 million bushels to 16,013 million. If realized, this would be the second-largest U.S. corn harvest on record, behind only last year’s 17.0 billion.

Demand did the tightening. USDA raised 2026/27 exports 75 million bushels to 3,275 million on stronger global demand and constrained Ukrainian shipments, and a smaller carry-in did the rest. Ending stocks fell 137 million bushels to 1,653 million, 92 below the 1,745 million analyst average. The 2026/27 season-average price forecast rose $0.10 to $4.50 per bushel. New-crop stocks-to-use drops to 10.1% from 11.0% in July.

The old-crop book tightened as well.

USDA raised 2025/26 exports 75 million bushels to 3,400 million, cutting ending stocks to 1,945 million. Analysts averaged 1,997, and the lowest guess in the Bloomberg survey was 1,948; USDA came in under all 25 of those surveyed. The 2025/26 season-average price forecast held at $4.15 per bushel. Old-crop stocks-to-use now sits at 11.7%, down from 12.2% last month.

World 2026/27 ending stocks slipped 0.6 mmt to 274.66 million metric tons. Extreme heat and dryness cut EU yield prospects again, while Russia, Ukraine, and Zambia got production increases. The trade mix shifted toward the United States, with U.S. exports raised while Ukraine and the EU were cut. World new-crop stocks-to-use eases to 20.8%, still pointing toward the tightest global corn carryout in over a decade.

SOYBEANS

Soybeans found more acres too. Harvested area rose 1.4 million acres to 85.8 million on higher acreage in Missouri, Mississippi, and Minnesota, while the first survey-based yield came in at 52.7 bushels per acre, 0.3 below both last month’s projection and last year’s record. Production rose 44 million bushels to 4,519 million.

Crush is the story. USDA raised 2026/27 crush 30 million bushels to a record 2,780 million on strong margins and growing meal and oil demand, and soybean meal exports rose 0.7 million short tons to 22.7 million. With exports held at 1,660 million, ending stocks rose 10 million bushels to 320 million, 14 above the 306 million analyst average, which had leaned tighter. Season-average price forecasts were unchanged: $11.40 per bushel for soybeans, $310 per short ton for meal, and 70 cents per pound for oil. New-crop stocks-to-use ticks up to 7.0% from 6.9%, still tight by any historical measure.

Old-crop ending stocks slipped 5 million bushels to 325 million on a slightly higher crush, close to the 323 million analyst average. The 2025/26 season-average price forecast held at $10.40 per bushel. Old-crop stocks-to-use sits at 7.6%, below the 10% line that historically starts to support prices.

Globally, 2026/27 ending stocks were essentially unchanged at 124.21 million metric tons. World new-crop stocks-to-use holds at 28.1%, down about a point from the old crop’s 29.1%.

WHEAT

Wheat production fell 5 million bushels to 1,531 million on slightly lower harvested area and yield, with Hard Red Winter and Durum taking most of the cut, and this would still be the smallest U.S. wheat crop since 1970/71. Ending stocks fell 5 million to 717 million, right on the 718 million analyst average and down 22% from last year.

The price forecast moved more than the balance sheet. USDA raised the 2026/27 season-average farm price $0.20 to $6.20 per bushel, citing the lower stocks-to-use ratio and futures and cash prices to date, against a final $5.06 for 2025/26. New-crop stocks-to-use slips to 38.3% from 38.5% in July, a long way down from the just-ended year’s 45.0%.

The global wheat story this month is the Black Sea. USDA cut Russian and Ukrainian exports on logistical disruptions from the widening conflict in the Sea of Azov and Black Sea, dropping world trade 0.3 mmt to 212.7 million. EU and United Kingdom production fell on prolonged summer heat during grain fill, and more EU wheat is moving into feed rations as corn supplies tighten. Even so, world ending stocks rose 0.4 mmt to 273.25 million metric tons, with the increases sitting in Russia and Ukraine, exactly where they’re currently hardest to ship. World stocks-to-use holds near 33.1%.

Four reports into the 2026/27 cycle, the pattern hasn’t broken: demand keeps outrunning supply. The first survey yields trimmed the corn crop, acres put it back, and carryout still fell because exports and crush keep climbing. In our view that’s how Stage #1 typically ends, though the exit is rarely visible until after the fact. September brings FSA acreage data and the next objective-yield update.

The crop is big; the cushion is shrinking.

Wheat

September Chicago wheat settled at $6.39 1/4 Friday, down 24 1/4 cents on the day and 38 3/4 cents for the week. September KC wheat lost 23 1/4 cents to $7.07 1/2, and Pro Farmer had September spring wheat down 21 3/4 cents to $6.89 3/4. All three classes printed weekly low closes, and all three gave back everything the mid-July Black Sea rally built.

The war news got worse and the price went down anyway.

A Ukrainian drone strike inflicted “significant damage” on Russia’s grain export terminal at Taman on the Kerch Strait, a facility Reuters put at 5 million metric tons of capacity, and shipping through the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait has been halted since July 10. That corridor handled roughly a quarter of Russian grain exports. Russia still cleared only 374,000 tons of wheat in the week to Thursday, down from 513,000 the week before, and Marex’s Tim Bulfer had Russian August/September FOB offers slipping toward $230 per ton with bids absent because boats aren’t being nominated into port. Cheap offers with no bids behind them is the tell: the market is treating disrupted Russian supply as something well short of missing Russian supply. Turkey lifting the milling wheat export ban it’s had in place since March 2025, on the back of a record 22.8 million ton harvest, gave the bears one more thing to point at.

Friday’s CFTC report (full table below, following sugar commentary) explains the velocity. Managed money had cut its Chicago wheat net short to 8,163 contracts as of Tuesday, down from 18,399 a week earlier and 60,432 on July 7, while going net long 31,411 in KC and 7,794 in spring wheat, a class the funds were still net short in mid-July.

The short base that powered the July rally is largely spent, which leaves less covering fuel behind the next headline. Bulfer put 20-day moving average support in the September contract at 657 going into Friday and the price closed well under it. Another escalation could still lift prices, though the last three faded inside a session.

Soybeans

November soybeans settled at $11.87 1/2 Friday, down 1 1/4 cents on the day and 66 cents for the week, the biggest dollar loss in the complex. The contract traded above $12.53 a week ago and hit a three-week low Thursday after slicing through $12 on Wednesday.

A wetter, cooler Corn Belt forecast for the first week of August landed right as the crop entered the month that makes it, and Pro Farmer editor Bill Watts called soybeans the hardest hit, with one to two inches of rain seen for much of Iowa and Illinois. USDA rated the crop 63% good-to-excellent Monday, down 3 points on the week and below the 65% average guess, which bought the bulls exactly one session.

China is the other half of the picture. Standard Grain’s Joe Vaclavik tallied China’s new crop purchases at 3.045 million metric tons against the White House’s stated 25 million ton per year target, and Friday’s 132,000 ton flash sale was the first since Monday. Total new crop commitments of 7.468 million tons are up 196% from a year ago, which is the number the bears keep skipping.

Managed money was net long 160,479 contracts as of Tuesday, up 29,974 on the week, with gross shorts down to just 39,158. Marex had looked for the funds to have sold roughly 2,000 lots. So the money was adding into strength through Tuesday and the break came Wednesday through Friday, after the reporting window closed. With little short base to squeeze, rallies from here may need fresh buyers rather than trapped sellers.

Pro Farmer advised selling another 10% of new crop on July 29, taking cash-only marketers to 55% sold. Domestic crush is the offset: ADM said this week it will add roughly 700,000 tons of annual North American crush capacity across four plants by late 2028, and the average guess for USDA’s June crush due Monday is 217.9 million bushels against 212.4 million in May. Watch whether Xi Jinping’s September visit to the U.S. stays on the calendar.

Corn

December corn settled at $4.64 Friday, down 4 1/2 cents on the day and 23 1/2 cents for the week. The uptrend that carried the contract through July is gone.

USDA rated corn 63% good-to-excellent Monday, a larger-than-expected 4-point drop that leaves the crop 10 points behind a year ago, and Marex’s Tim Bulfer read it simply: heat counts. December corn popped 6 1/2 cents Tuesday on that number, then spent three sessions handing it back as the forecasts turned wet. Drought hasn’t actually gone away, with Thursday’s USDA Drought Monitor still covering 29% of U.S. corn area, and the gap at 468’2 that Vaclavik had been watching filled on the way down.

The COT is where corn gets interesting. Managed money went net long 126,776 contracts as of Tuesday, a 70,063 contract swing in a single week built mostly by covering 61,365 shorts. Bulfer had looked for something closer to 26,000 lots of net buying, so the trade badly underestimated how fast the long side was rebuilding. Worth keeping in proportion: the funds were net short 14,999 as recently as July 7 and their May peak was 295,620, so this is a quick rebuild rather than a stretched position, and it could cut either way from here.

Demand keeps working quietly in the background, with Algeria taking 10 cargoes for late August, Mexico buying for November, and Korea’s MFG and Taiwan’s MFIG each booking roughly 65,000 metric tons.

Senate Republicans plan to attach permanent year-round E15 to the farm bill at an August 6 markup (that bill still needs 60 votes). Watch Monday’s crop progress and the June ethanol grind, where the average guess of 466.4 million bushels would be down from 474.2 million in May.

Sugar

October ICE No. 11 sugar settled at 14.66 cents Friday, up 23 points on the day and down just 11 points for the week. It was the only contract in this note that basically held, and it took a four-session slide to 14.43 and a sharp Friday reversal to get there.

Two forecasts moved in opposite directions and roughly cancelled each other out. Green Pool raised its 2026/27 global deficit projection Wednesday to 3.34 million metric tons from 1.76 million, citing rain that keeps delaying Center-South Brazil milling (pushing mills toward ethanol and away from sugar) plus hot, dry weather cutting European output. StoneX lifted its own deficit estimate to 1.7 million tons the same week, with EU beet production down 15.3% to 15 million tons and Thailand off 15.1% to 10.2 million.

Pulling the other way, India’s monsoon rainfall deficit narrowed to 15% below normal by July 29 from 42% at the end of June, which takes the worst case off the world’s second-largest cane crop. A softer dollar did the rest of Friday’s work: the greenback logged its worst week in three months after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s press conference, with Bloomberg’s Dollar Spot Index down 1.2% over five sessions before a corrective bounce Friday.

The funds are leaning the other way from the deficit headlines. Managed money was net short 116,424 contracts as of Tuesday and added 13,742 shorts on the week, so Friday’s 23-point pop reads more like covering into the weekend than conviction buying. That short is nowhere near extreme by recent standards (it ran to 186,290 in late June), but it’s a standing bid if the deficit story firms. Price is sitting on a 20-, 50-, and 200-day moving average cluster compressed into a few tenths of a cent, with RSI near 49, and moves out of that kind of coil can be quick in either direction.

India’s August 1 stockholding limits (400 tons per location, 30-day turnover) and the possibility that thin ending stocks force New Delhi to curb cane juice diversion to ethanol next season are the bullish tail. Watch Brazil’s Center-South mix, which StoneX cut to 46.1% sugar from 47.9%; more ethanol and less sugar out of a 641 million ton crush would tighten that balance further.

COT MANAGED MONEY NET POSITIONING

Wheat

September Chicago wheat settled at $6.78 Friday, down 18 1/4 cents on the day after printing a contract high of $7.11 1/4 overnight. That capped a wild ride: Wednesday’s 27 3/4-cent surge to a $7.05 3/4 contract-high close had the market leading the whole grain complex, and by Friday’s bell it had given the week back, settling 4 3/4 cents below the prior Friday. The hard wheats held on better: September Kansas City finished the week up 13 cents at $7.45 1/4 and September spring wheat added 22 1/2 cents to $7.14 1/4.

Russia pounded Odesa port infrastructure and shut off Sea of Azov access, a route that normally moves about a quarter of Russian grain exports, while Novorossiysk, the largest Russian grain port at up to a third of shipments, went to a midnight-to-5 a.m. navigation ban after near-daily Ukrainian drone attacks.

Meanwhile, shipowners suspended arrivals at Ukraine’s ports on their own initiative.

Reuters reported traders see 4 to 6 million tons of wheat shipments potentially delayed.

Underneath the headlines sits a real supply story: Sovecon cut Russia’s 2026 crop to 88.3 million tons from 91.4 million last year, analysts trimmed Russia’s July exports 25% to 1.5 million tons, EU grain production is tracking more than 9% below last year with Paris wheat up about 20% on the month, and the North Dakota tour wrapped with a 48 bushel spring wheat estimate against USDA’s 58 for the state, on the smallest planted area since 1969.

Funds noticed too, cutting SRW net shorts from 79,407 contracts in early June to 36,798 by mid-July, with Marex flagging gamma buying off the $7 strike and implied vol back at 45%. Then Friday brought talk of a reopening compromise, wheat broke hard, and Ukraine’s ag minister denied official talks were even underway. StoneX’s Mike Castle called it “geopolitical headline whiplash,” and Arlan Suderman added the structural caveat: “the U.S. is at the end of the line for meeting global wheat demand.”

Watch for whether any corridor mechanism actually materializes. If the ports stay effectively shut, wheat could retest its highs, and the North Dakota shortfall gives that case something physical to stand on rather than pure headline risk. A workable deal could pull the war premium out just as fast as it went in, and Pro Farmer read Friday’s action in the winter wheats as “key reversals” down, which it called “early technical clues of near-term market tops being in place.” Its broader caution fits the tape: “funds can shift positioning on a dime.”

Soybeans

November soybeans settled at $12.53 1/2 Friday, up 9 3/4 cents and a fresh contract high, the only row crop to close the final session higher. Beans added just over 50 cents on the week, about 4%, and have now taken out the contract high set back in late 2022.

USDA flashed new-crop sales all week: 264,000 tons to China Monday plus 110,000 tons to unknown destinations the same day, another 126,000 tons unknown Thursday, on top of 340,000 tons to China and 256,634 tons to Mexico the previous Friday. Thursday’s weekly report showed 1.537 million tons of new-crop bean sales, more than the trade expected, though old-crop business was thin at 56,400 tons and accumulated sales still run 18% behind last year.

Suderman pegs Chinese new-crop purchases at 160 million bushels against Beijing’s 919 million bushel commitment, and he is careful about the headline number: the 225 million bushels of new-crop sales on the books is “the highest in four years for mid-July, but unimpressive overall.” He reads the buying partly as trade politics, with China purchasing “as a means to get concessions” on bigger disputes. Standard Grain’s Joe Vaclavik is blunter about what’s driving it: the rally is “mainly attributed to Chinese purchases,” with US weather “likely a secondary issue.” Late-July heat in the western belt and Thursday’s 6.2% crude jump didn’t hurt, and Marex looked for funds to have bought 26,000 lots of beans into Friday’s COT report.

Pro Farmer’s seasonal math is worth noting: the average summer-rally gain projects to roughly $12.61, so this move may be closer to its end than its start. Watch the pace of Chinese purchases and the August heat maps. Continued heat could keep the bid under the market, while a settle back below $12.22 3/4 might signal the summer rally has run its course.

Corn

December corn settled unchanged Friday at $4.87 1/2 after touching $4.92, a two-month high, earlier in the session. The week added 20 cents, about 4%, with gains stacking every day from Monday through Thursday.

A heat wave that sat over the Plains for more than a week spread into the western Corn Belt, and USDA trimmed good/excellent ratings a point to 67%, still a point better than the trade guessed. The yield spread is the tell: crop consultant Michael Cordonnier cut his estimate to 181 bushels per acre, Suderman’s model sits at 186.7, AEI is at 188.96 and CropProphet at 187.7, all against USDA’s 183 trend figure.

Nearly every private model runs above USDA, which tells you how much of this rally is weather premium rather than confirmed crop loss.

Energy pitched in hard. WTI settled Thursday at $92.19, up 6.2% and its highest close since early June after Houthi attacks on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, and ethanol production hit 1.094 million barrels a day with Corn Belt margins running 10 to 35 cents positive. Crude gave a chunk of that back Friday, which is part of why the grains stalled into the weekend.

Demand isn’t uniformly strong, either. Weekly export sales came in at 332,700 tons, below expectations for a second straight week and 44% under the prior four-week average, even with accumulated shipments 25% ahead of last year. FranceAgriMer rated France’s corn crop 38% good/excellent, the worst in its records, and EU corn production is headed for a 19-year low, which could open European demand for US corn if Black Sea logistics stay snarled. Marex put the positioning plainly: “The money wants back in on the longside.”

Monday’s crop ratings and the August heat maps are the swing inputs. Forecast heat building into August could keep support under prices, while a cooler shift might invite the profit-taking Pro Farmer warned about: summer weather rallies “can pop up fast and can die just as quickly.” Trade policy is the other wildcard, with a 50% tariff on select Canadian imports due August 19 and USMCA left unrenewed while Mexico sits as the top buyer of US corn. Caution also makes sense ahead of the August WASDE.

Sugar

October No. 11 sugar settled at 14.77 cents per pound Friday, up 0.08 on the day, still parked in the middle of the range it has held since spring. The futures tape was quiet; the loudest sugar news came from the physical and policy side.

Domestic prices in India hit records, with ex-mill Uttar Pradesh at 4,400 to 4,500 rupees a quintal, up roughly 300 in a month, and New Delhi is weighing stock limits after a weak monsoon hurt cane; Karnataka growers are asking for a drought declaration across more than 180 taluks. ISMA has trimmed this season’s output estimate to 32 million tons, though USDA’s local office sees next season rebounding about 12% to 33.6 million..

In Brazil, federal prosecutors moved to suspend the newly approved 32% ethanol blend, one of three legal challenges now pending, and where that lands could shape how much cane goes to ethanol versus sugar next season. Thursday’s crude spike to $92.19 sharpens that math, since stronger energy prices pull Brazilian mills toward ethanol and away from sugar, though crude gave some of the move back Friday.

Washington, meanwhile, set FY2027 raw sugar import quotas at the WTO minimum of 1.12 million tons, cutting Brazil’s allocation from 156,000 to 100,000 tons while the Philippines held 145,000 and climbed to the number 2 slot.

Watch whether India actually imposes stock limits or shifts export policy, how Brazilian courts treat E32, and whether crude holds its gains. Tighter Indian supply could support world prices, while a blend mandate stuck in court might push more Brazilian cane toward sugar and cap rallies.

Wheat

September Chicago wheat settled at $6.82 3/4 on Friday, up 10 cents on the day (+1.48%). That’s the third straight higher weekly close, and the move has one driver above all others: the Black Sea.

On July 10, Ukrainian forces struck Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov, and the fighting spilled into the Black Sea over the following days. Russia closed the Kerch Strait with no timeline to reopen, then hit back at Ukraine’s grain ports around Odesa. StoneX’s Arlan Suderman flagged as many as 147 Russian-linked ships hit inside an 11-day window, with insurance rates for anything near those ports soaring and shippers increasingly unwilling to take the risk.

USDA pegs Russia at nearly one-fifth of world wheat exports, and Reuters estimates roughly a quarter of that flows through the Sea of Azov.

Weather is stacking on top of the war. Pro Farmer shared a report that Western Australia, the country’s largest wheat-exporting state, may loose almost 30% of its crop compared to last year (9.5 million tons, down from 13.3 million). Additionally, a late-June heatwave has dented the EU crop, and USDA now has the U.S. winter wheat crop at 990.4 million bushels, the smallest since 1963.

The counterweight is real: Russia is carrying a record yield (3.53 tons per hectare), harvest is only getting started, and Marex’s Tim Bulfer notes world cash basis levels aren’t following futures higher. That’s a sign that importers aren’t chasing prices higher.

Watch the port at Novorossijsk. It isn’t shut, but Suderman warns that if Ukraine starts targeting grain ships there, the market could lose its main alternative route and prices may face further upward pressure. Pro Farmer flagged resistance near $6.85 and $7.00 as the levels traders are watching into next week.

Soybeans

August soybeans settled at $12.04 1/2 Friday, up 9 cents (+0.75%). China is back at the U.S. counter.

USDA’s flash system showed nearly 707,000 metric tons of new-crop soybean sales Friday morning, with 340,000 tons explicitly to China. StoneX’s Mike Castle called it the largest single day of new-crop soybean flash sales since July 2023 and the biggest soybean flash day of any kind since November 2025.

Marex reported 14 cargoes traded to China for Sinograin on Thursday, with more done overnight. Cumulative 2026/27 sales now sit at 169 million bushels, the largest for this point on the calendar since 2022.

The catch is politics. President Trump used a Thursday-night address to draw attention to China’s meddling in the 2020 election. The U.S.- China relationship is fragile, and farmers would like to see China fulfill their verbal purchase commitments. Some analysts remain skeptical that Sinograin gets anywhere near the alleged 25-million-ton purchase target by year-end, with Marex’s Bulfur guessing the final number may be more like half that, with Brazilian beans still winning most private Chinese business and a 10% import tax on U.S. beans still in place.

Watch whether these flash sales turn into a sustained pace. The coming weeks are typically the strongest stretch for new-crop export sales, so if China keeps stepping up, the U.S. balance sheet could tighten meaningfully. If the political realities lead to Beijing backing away, the move may stall.

Corn

September corn settled at $4.44 3/4 Friday, up 4 cents (+0.91%), continuing it’s steady upward price climb.

Pro Farmer’s Lane Akre framed it well: December corn is seeing its first durable summer rally in three years. The contract bottomed at $4.30 on June 29 and has since climbed about 40 cents, powered by record demand, weather worry, and world production concerns.

Crop conditions are the soft spot. French corn rated good-to-excellent has slid to 41%, down from 72% a year ago, and Marex expects Monday’s U.S. condition ratings to come in 2% to 3% lower, which would put the crop roughly 10% below year-ago levels. The International Grains Council trimmed world corn stocks by 5 million tons.

While market participants naturally associate Black Sea risks with wheat, it’s important to keep in mind that Russia and Ukraine combine for ~ 13% of global corn exports.

Pulling the other way, South America’s harvest is coming in with good yields and Argentine corn remains the cheapest offer in the world, potentially putting a cap on how far U.S. futures can run.

Monday’s Crop Progress report is the near-term tell. Pro Farmer notes a close back below roughly $4.52, or under the 20-day moving average, would suggest the rally is running out of steam, so watch for the possibility of a pullback if conditions surprise to the upside.

Sugar

October No. 11 sugar settled at 14.83 cents Friday, up 0.39 cents (+2.70%), the biggest one-day percentage move among the four markets we track.

The catalyst is a demand story out of Brazil. On July 14, the country’s energy council approved raising the anhydrous ethanol blend in gasoline from 30% to 32%, and Unica estimates the change could add roughly 1 billion liters of anhydrous ethanol demand a year.

More ethanol demand pulls cane toward the still and away from the sugar bin, which could tighten global supply. Then there’s trade friction. The U.S. is set to impose 25% tariffs on Brazilian products on July 22, and Brazil sent about 420,000 metric tons of sugar and 253 million liters of ethanol to the U.S. in 2025. If the tariff sticks, that volume has to find new buyers, and rerouting it could ripple through global prices.

The supply side is leaking in several places at once. Pakistan’s government deferred a request to export more than 600,000 metric tons of surplus sugar, the Philippine sugar regulator warned a pest infestation could cost 150,000 metric tons (about 8% of national output), and a labor shortage on South Africa’s North Coast is delaying cane harvesting. Global white sugar has been hovering around $455 to $465 per metric ton.

Watch how Brazil splits its cane between ethanol and sugar as E32 phases in, and whether the July 22 tariff forces Brazilian sugar to find new homes. Either could keep sugar sensitive to headlines in the weeks ahead.

Frankly, we got it wrong in 2022. We expected Russia to establish and enforce a total blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. The logic seemed sound at the time: nations fight wars to win, a prolonged blockade would inflict maximum economic pain, and Russia had already committed the blood and treasure of an invasion. Russia walked a more calculated line instead.

The blockade came, but it leaked. Through negotiations brokered by the United Nations and Türkiye, Russia agreed to let Ukrainian grain ships transit the Black Sea under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, signed in Istanbul on July 22, 2022.1 The war premium that had flooded into wheat bled out with each successful shipment. Front-month Chicago wheat peaked at $14.25 1/4 per bushel on March 7, 2022; it finished that December below $8.2

Ukraine’s Rerouting Machine

The Ukrainian farm economy proved remarkably resilient. Grain moved west by rail and road and down the Danube through the EU’s Solidarity Lanes, which carried roughly 60% of Ukraine’s grain exports while the Initiative ran.3 When Russia terminated its participation in July 2023,4 Ukraine stood up its own shipping corridor hugging the western Black Sea coast. It worked: by this spring, roughly 90% of Ukraine’s grain and oilseed exports moved by sea again.5 Wheat exports never collapsed the way the early headlines implied: 18.8 million metric tons in 2021/22, 17.1 million in the first full war year, and between 14 and 18.6 million every season since.6

The softer export pace of the last two seasons started in the field. Ukraine harvested a record 33 million tons of wheat in 2021/22, planted before the invasion. The next crop came in at 21.5 million, and production has stabilized in the 23 to 24 million ton range since.7 The front line runs through the chernozem belt, some of the most fertile soil on earth, and the occupied portions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia grew about 21% of Ukraine’s pre-war wheat.8 Many of the farmers who worked that ground have now spent four growing seasons fighting instead of planting.

A Comfortable Market, Until Friday

Through the week ending July 10, the global balance sheet looked comfortable. USDA’s July WASDE put world ending stocks at 279 million tons for 2025/26, the highest in several years on record world production, with 272.8 million projected for 2026/27.9 Front-month Chicago wheat closed July 9 at $6.11 1/4, in the bottom quarter of its five-year range.10

Then Ukraine set the Sea of Azov on fire.

Beginning in early July, Ukrainian naval drones ran one of the largest anti-shipping campaigns of the war: more than 100 vessels hit over eight days by one count, including 21 tankers claimed in a single night.11 The targets were Russia’s shadow-fleet tankers, the ships that move sanctioned oil and carry fuel toward Crimea.12 Grain carriers share the same water and the same ports. On the evening of July 10, Russia’s border guards stopped accepting applications for passage through the Kerch Strait, with no end date given, and traffic on the Don-Azov canal was suspended the same day.13 Russia closed its own export artery to protect it.

Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter, shipping 48 million tons in 2025/26, roughly 21% of world trade.14 Up to a quarter of its wheat moves through the Azov system: down the river network to shallow-water elevators at Rostov-on-Don, Azov, and Taganrog, out through the Kerch Strait, and onto deep-sea vessels bound for buyers as close as Turkey and as far as Bangladesh, with Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, and Israel in between.15 SovEcon’s math frames the risk. Russia’s deep-sea Black Sea ports can handle roughly 4 million tons a month and cannot absorb the Azov volumes during the August-to-November export peak; a halt that runs toward year-end could cut Russian wheat exports by 5 to 10 million tons.16

The Trade That Worked for Two and a Half Years

The tape’s first reaction followed the old script. Chicago wheat jumped 3.4% on Friday, July 10 as the strikes hit the wires, then went flat Monday and Tuesday while traders leaned into the fade; Reuters quoted one German trader suggesting the disruption might “not be as bad as initially feared.”17 By midday Wednesday the market had thought better of it, with the front month trading at $6.65 1/2, up 5.3% from Friday’s close.18

Andrey Sizov, managing director of the Black Sea grain consultancy SovEcon, told Standard Grain’s Joe Vaclavik on July 14 that the market looks “too relaxed.” Traders have spent two and a half years profitably selling every Black Sea spike, and Sizov isn’t convinced the playbook holds: “We’re not sure that it’s gonna be the case this time.”19

Escalation, in Both Directions

Russia answered in kind. Its drones and missiles hit the greater Odesa ports for five straight days, striking foreign-flagged cargo ships on back-to-back days and a residential building overnight into July 15; the attacks killed at least five people across the week.20 Russia has also stepped up strikes on Ukraine’s Danube terminals, and Kernel, Ukraine’s largest grain and oilseed exporter, halted operations at one of them.21 Ukraine, for its part, shows little appetite for the restraint Russia extended to grain shipping under the 2022 deal. Its drone arsenal now reaches every corner of the Azov, and if higher global food prices are the cost of winning a war of survival, Kyiv appears willing to pay it. A tit-for-tat that keeps landing on ports, terminals, and vessels could put availability itself in play, for Russian and Ukrainian wheat at the same time. Diplomats may get there first: Türkiye brokered the last set of shipping arrangements, and we could see it pressed into that role again. In that event, this premium could bleed back out the way the last one did.

For the Allocator

Wheat entered July priced for comfort, sitting in the bottom quarter of its five-year range, in a market where a single strait carries up to a quarter of the top exporter’s program. Concentration risk like that rarely shows up in realized volatility until the day it does. In our view the asymmetry deserves attention on both sides: world stocks are ample, so a quick reopening could drain this premium as fast as it arrived, while a closure that reaches the August export peak could hand the market 5 to 10 million tons of Russian supply to reprice.

Watch the calendar. Russia’s Azov export machine runs hardest from August through November. Sizov called a July-only closure a negligible loss; one that reaches deep into August starts converting the 5-to-10-million-ton scenario into next month’s balance sheet.22

The market saw plenty of wheat through the week ending July 10. Whether it still sees plentiful availability in August is the question.

Wheat

Chicago wheat led the complex into the weekend. September futures settled at $6.40 1/4 Friday, up 19 1/2 cents (3.1%), the biggest single-day gain among the four markets we track.

The spark came from the Black Sea region. Ukrainian drones hit 35 of the roughly 120 Russian ships operating in the Sea of Azov, and by Friday morning both the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait were closed to commodity traffic through the weekend. StoneX’s Arlan Suderman laid out the stakes: 30-35% of Russia’s wheat exports move through that corridor, Russia is expected to account for more than 22% of global wheat exports this year, and the global cash price of wheat is generally set in the Black Sea.

Friday’s WASDE was the quieter story, with new-crop ending stocks at 722 million bushels, down 22 million from June but slightly above the trade guess; Marex’s Tim Bulfer rated the numbers neutral. Europe kept deteriorating in the background, with French milling wheat ratings sliding to 65% good/excellent and Expana cutting its EU milling wheat forecast to 128.3 million metric tons.

Watch the Kerch Strait. A quiet reopening could bleed the premium back out as fast as it built, while any Russian retaliation against commercial grain vessels leaving Ukraine might push prices higher still.

Harvest pressure is the counterweight; winter wheat was 59% cut as of Sunday, and Russian offers near $228 per ton kept US wheat uncompetitive all week.

Corn

September corn settled at $4.39 1/2 Friday, up 7 cents (1.6%). The week opened with what Marex’s desk called the first official weather scare of the crop year; December corn ran to a five-week high at $4.64 1/4 Tuesday before cooler forecasts clawed most of it back.

Friday’s WASDE gave the bulls their spark. USDA cut old-crop ending stocks 125 million bushels to 2.02 billion, 59 million below the average trade estimate, and dropped new-crop carryout 170 million to 1.79 billion on stronger exports.

The old-crop tightening ran through feed and residual, raised 150 million bushels to 6.35 billion, a category Suderman had called “statistically in dreamland” even before the increase.

The market took the print as friendly; corn was up 6 to 7 cents within the hour. The weather story that started the week was real too: CropProphet data pegged June 29 through July 4 as the warmest overnight stretch for US corn areas in 46 years of records, per Standard Grain’s Joe Vaclavik, who spent the week tracking forecasts of “non-stop” Corn Belt heat before the GFS model cooled off Thursday.

Sunday night’s weather models may matter more than anything USDA printed. Marex’s desk flagged a blocking ridge building over the western Belt next week, right as pollination ramps into its July 10-31 window, and called the weekend model runs the real decision point. Watch for the ridge to hold or slide east; either outcome could set corn’s tone for the back half of July.

Soybeans

September soybeans settled at $11.81 1/4 Friday, up 9 3/4 cents (0.8%). November beans spent the week knocking on $12, touching a six-week high Wednesday before profit-taking trimmed the move.

China did the buying. COFCO booked cargoes Monday and Tuesday, USDA confirmed a 472,000 metric ton sale Wednesday (the biggest daily soybean sale to China since November), another 136,000 tons Thursday, and 9.7 million bushels more Friday morning.

Suderman’s read: China “is finally stepping up to the plate.” The catalyst traces to Beijing’s statement that both sides agreed in principle to fold agriculture into a tariff-reduction framework. The scale is still small: new-crop commitments sit near 2% of China’s 25 million metric ton annual pledge, and US beans carry a 13% tariff into China against 3% for Brazil, per Pro Farmer.

Friday’s WASDE added 40 million bushels of production on higher acres but raised new-crop exports 30 million, holding ending stocks at 310 million bushels, 22 million under the trade guess.

Watch the flash-sale tape. Talk inside China points to 15 million tons of purchases by December 31, and steady confirmations could keep a bid under this market even if the weather cooperates.

Sugar

October sugar settled at 14.88 cents per pound Friday, down 0.24 (1.6%), the only market of the four to finish lower. No. 11 has had trouble sustaining rallies with Brazil’s crush running big.

Brazil is the anchor. UNICA data show Center-South crushing fell about 13% in the second half of May on rain-soaked fields, but the season-to-date crush still runs roughly 16% ahead of last year, with cane yields at 84.7 metric tons per hectare, well above early projections.

Hedgepoint pegs the full-season crush near 635 million tons with room to move higher. The forward ledger looks tighter: Czarnikow flipped its 2026/27 global balance to a 600,000-ton deficit after cutting EU production to 13.9 million tons on heat-wave damage, and NOAA raised the odds of a very strong El Niño to 81% for October-December, with a 97% chance it stays active into early 2027.

Watch Brazilian rainfall through August. Rain slows the crush now but builds cane for the August-November window, so a drier stretch could let mills catch up and keep nearby prices heavy.

If El Niño delivers the drought NOAA’s probabilities imply for India and Thailand, deferred contracts may hold their supportive bias even while the front of the curve struggles.

USDA delivered real news in July, and most of it leaned friendly. The June 30 Grain Stocks and Acreage reports worked their way into the balance sheets this month, and corn came out the other side much tighter: old-crop carryout cut 125 million bushels on booming feed demand, new-crop carryout down 170 million to 1,790 million, essentially matching the lowest estimate in the Bloomberg analyst survey. Wheat added a headline of its own, with production forecast at the smallest U.S. wheat crop since 1970/71.

We remain in Golden Grain Cycle Stage #1, with prices near cost of production, but demand appears to be doing what eventually ends Stage #1: quietly eating through the cushion.

CORN

The old-crop story is feed demand. The June 30 Grain Stocks report showed just over 5.6 billion bushels of feed and residual disappearance through the first three quarters of the marketing year, versus roughly 4.8 billion a year earlier. USDA responded by raising 2025/26 feed and residual use 150 million bushels to 6,350 million, partly offset by a 25 million bushel cut to corn used for ethanol. Old-crop ending stocks fell 125 million to 2,020 million bushels, 59 below the 2,079 million analyst average. The 2025/26 season-average price forecast held at $4.15 per bushel. Old-crop stocks-to-use now sits at 12.2%, down from 13.0% in June.

New crop tightened even more. Production edged up 5 million bushels to 16,000 million on updated area from the Acreage report (95.3 million acres planted, 87.4 million harvested), with the yield held at 183.0 bushels per acre. Exports were raised 50 million to 3,200 million on expectations of continued global demand strength, and the smaller carry-in did the rest. Ending stocks fell 170 million bushels to 1,790 million. That’s 109 below the 1,899 million analyst average and 1 million bushels above the lowest estimate in the survey. The 2026/27 season-average price forecast held at $4.40 per bushel. New-crop stocks-to-use drops to 11.0% from 12.1% in June.

The global book tightened right alongside. World 2026/27 ending stocks fell 6.0 mmt to 275.26 million metric tons. Record heat cut France’s crop, potentially the smallest French corn harvest in more than three decades, with Hungary and Kenya also reduced and ending stocks trimmed for China, Ukraine, and the EU. Old-crop world stocks came down 4.7 mmt to 298.67 million, with the U.S. feed revision the biggest piece. World new-crop stocks-to-use falls to 20.8% from 21.3% in June and continues to point toward the tightest global corn carryout in over a decade.

SOYBEANS

Soybeans got more acres and found a home for them. Production rose 40 million bushels to 4,475 million on harvested area of 84.4 million acres from the Acreage report, up 0.7 million from June, with the yield forecast unchanged at 53.0 bushels per acre. USDA raised exports 30 million bushels to 1,660 million on the bigger supplies and stronger global demand, and with beginning stocks 10 million lower, ending stocks held at 310 million bushels. That’s 22 below the 332 million analyst average, which had leaned toward a bigger build. The 2026/27 season-average price forecasts were unchanged: $11.40 per bushel for soybeans, $310 per short ton for meal, and 70 cents per pound for oil. New-crop stocks-to-use stays at 6.9%, still very tight.

Old-crop ending stocks slipped 10 million bushels to 330 million on a 10 million bushel bump to exports, now 1,520 million. Crush held at 2,650 million. The 2025/26 season-average price forecast stayed at $10.40 per bushel. Old-crop stocks-to-use sits at 7.7%, below the 10% line that historically starts to support prices.

Globally, 2026/27 ending stocks eased 0.7 mmt to 124.17 million metric tons, mainly on lower Brazilian stocks as Brazil’s export forecast rose 0.5 mmt to 118 million. China’s import and crush forecasts were each raised 1.0 mmt, to 115 and 111 million, keeping its projected meal demand growth at 2 percent. World new-crop stocks-to-use eases to 28.1% from 29.2% in the old crop.

WHEAT

At 1,536 million bushels, this would be the smallest U.S. wheat crop since 1970/71. Production fell 7 million from June even as the all-wheat yield rose 0.9 bushels to 47.9 per acre, because the acres aren’t there. Winter wheat production was cut 39 million bushels to 990 million, almost entirely Hard Red and Soft Red, while NASS’s first survey-based spring numbers put other spring wheat at 475 million and Durum at 71 million, both down on smaller harvested area.

With beginning stocks 15 million lower and no changes to domestic use or exports, 2026/27 ending stocks fell 22 million bushels to 722 million, 4 above the 718 million analyst average and down 22% from last year. USDA’s new-crop carryout forecast has now fallen in back-to-back reports, from 762 million in May to 722 today. The 2026/27 season-average price forecast held at $6.00 per bushel against a final $5.06 for 2025/26. New-crop stocks-to-use steps down to 38.5% from 39.7% in June.

Old-crop bookkeeping closed with 2025/26 ending stocks at 920 million bushels, 15 below June’s figure, on modestly higher final use. Stocks-to-use for the just-ended marketing year lands at 45.0%. That’s the burdensome backdrop the new crop has to work down, and a 22% smaller carryout is a meaningful first step.

Globally, 2026/27 ending stocks fell 2.6 mmt to 272.84 million metric tons, with cuts for the United States, India, Argentina, and Canada. Russia and Ukraine both got production increases, to 88.5 and 24.0 mmt, on favorable winter wheat weather, while Canada lost 1.0 mmt on Statistics Canada’s area report. World consumption rose 1.6 mmt to 826.2 million on food demand led by India, and trade moved up 1.1 mmt to 213.1 million. World stocks-to-use slips to 33.0%, still comfortable by historical standards but tightening at the margin.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Wheat

Chicago wheat paused Thursday, with the July ‘26 contract settling at $5.90 1/2, down 1 1/2 cents, after back-to-back gains earlier in the week. The deferred contracts told the bigger story: September SRW ended the holiday-shortened week up 10 cents and September Kansas City gained 19, with winter wheat closing at or near weekly highs, a technical development Pro Farmer’s editors flagged as price-friendly heading into next week.

Tuesday’s USDA reports provided the catalyst. All-wheat plantings came in at 42.74 million acres, the lowest tally ever recorded and the largest cut from March intentions since 2011, and as Standard Grain’s Joe Vaclavik pointed out, the harvested area, at 32.1 million acres, would be the smallest since 1877.

June 1 stocks printed 920 million bushels, below the average trade estimate.

The global backdrop helped too: Marex’s Tim Bulfer pointed to a 655,000 metric ton Saudi tender and slowing French exports out of Rouen as a heatwave leans on the Western European crop.

Still, the harvest hedge pressure is the counterweight, capping rallies while combines roll.

Watch next Friday. USDA releases its first all-wheat production estimate alongside the July 10 WASDE, and with the acreage base this small, any yield disappointment could tighten the balance sheet in a hurry.

US export sales are off 19% to start the marketing year, so if European heat keeps trimming that crop, US wheat could pick up business it’s been missing.

Corn

July corn added 4 cents Thursday to settle at $4.25. The market spent three straight sessions climbing off recent contract lows after Tuesday’s USDA data.

The Grain Stocks report showed 5.295 billion bushels on hand June 1, below every analyst estimate, which puts March-May usage at an all-time quarterly high of 3.74 billion bushels. Pro Farmer’s economists wrote that demand has ‘held up remarkably well,’ though with more than 17 billion bushels harvested last fall, they caution record use alone probably isn’t enough to lift prices in a meaningful way (it may however, in our view, help cement the recent lows as a near-term bottom).

Ethanol backs up the demand story: weekly production hit an 11-week high at 1.12 million barrels per day, and May corn-for-ethanol use set a monthly record at 471.8 million bushels, though StoneX’s Mike Castle notes cumulative usage still lags USDA’s full-year target.

Heat is the swing factor at home. The National Weather Service sees heat indices of 100 to 115 degrees across the Midwest through the weekend, though much of the belt has caught rain and forecasts lean wetter for the northwest belt next week.

Watch Monday’s crop condition ratings and Friday’s WASDE.

Record demand may not rally this market on its own, but it could keep a floor under it.

Soybeans

July soybeans added 5 1/2 cents Thursday to settle at $11.31 3/4.

Crush remains the engine. USDA reported a May crush of 213.1 million bushels, a record for the month and the 15th consecutive monthly record, with soyoil stocks at a six-month low. Castle flags the catch: cumulative crush has now slipped slightly behind the pace needed to hit USDA’s 2.65 billion bushel target, the first time all year that number has felt uncertain.

Exports are the soft spot, with old-crop weekly sales at a marketing-year low of 1.5 million bushels. That leaves China carrying the bull case: Bulfer noted rumors Beijing wants as much as 12 million metric tons booked before January, and Pro Farmer expects roughly 25 MMT of new-crop purchases.

June 1 stocks of 1.06 billion bushels came in above expectations, but quarterly use also set a record.

Watch for China to show up in the cash market. Futures positioning appears to be front-running the same playbook as Beijing’s last buying program, and confirmed sales could add to the modest weather premium the trade is holding.

But another week of marketing-year-low old-crop sales could offset that weather premium.

Sugar

Sugar quietly strung together its fourth straight session at a six-week high. October No. 11 futures ran to 15.17 cents per pound Thursday before settling at 14.85, off 0.14 on the day, extending a recovery off its late-June lows.

Two supply stories are doing the lifting. India’s monsoon rainfall was running 42% below normal as of June 29, per the India Meteorological Department, threatening cane yields in the world’s No. 2 producer. And Brazil’s Unica reported Center-South sugar production through May down 2% year over year at 6.84 million metric tons, with mills sending 58.4% of cane to ethanol versus 49.9% a year ago.

Talk of El Nino conditions building across the major producing regions has some forecasters penciling in a 2026/27 global deficit. Thursday’s macro tape helped too: a soft US jobs print (57,000 jobs added versus 110,000 expected) knocked the dollar to a two-week low.

Watch the monsoon maps and Unica’s next biweekly report. Bulfer notes the monsoon is advancing toward the northwest but still missing key growing areas in India’s west. If the deficit consensus firms up, sugar could extend its recovery; a dollar rebound or a swing back toward sugar production at Brazilian mills may stall it.

The trade braced for a corn glut and a clean rotation toward beans. USDA complicated both.

June 1 corn stocks came in at 5.29 billion bushels, 119 million under the 5.414 billion the trade expected, even with the pile sitting 14% above a year ago.

The miss to the low side had a real driver: March-May disappearance ran 3.74 billion bushels against 3.50 billion a year ago, so demand chewed through more of the carry than the market gave it credit for.

Corn acreage held at 95.3 million, unchanged from March and above the 95.1 the survey looked for, so no acreage relief came with the lighter stocks. Beans got heavier on acres. Wheat carried the real surprise: planted area was cut to 42.7 million acres, 1.1 million below both the survey and March, and the crop behind that number is in rough shape.

We’re still in Golden Grain Cycle Stage #1, prices grinding around cost-of-production, and today’s mix nudged the complex without breaking that framework.

ACREAGE

Corn planted area came in at 95.3 million acres, down 3% from last year but still the fourth-largest since 1944, and 0.2 million above the trade’s 95.1 estimate. One caveat worth flagging: 1.9 million of those acres were still unplanted when USDA ran the survey, so the figure can move in the August update (the 90% confidence range runs 93.0 to 97.7 million). Area harvested for corn sits at 87.4 million, down 4% on the year.

Soybeans took the acres the market expected, and then some. Planted area rose to 85.4 million, up 5% from last year and just past the 85.2 survey, with a record high in Ohio. The shift toward beans showed up. It just didn’t come out of corn’s hide.

Wheat is where the report bites. All-wheat area was cut to 42.7 million acres, down 6% from last year and 1.1 million below both the survey and March intentions. Spring wheat at 9.39 million is the smallest since 1970, and winter wheat harvested area, if realized at 21.2 million, would be a record low. The crop’s condition is worse than the acreage line: 44% of winter wheat was rated very poor to poor at the end of May after drought and April freezes, and only 26% sat good-to-excellent by June 28, down 23 points from a year ago. Small acres on a struggling crop is the friendliest setup in the report, in our view.

GRAIN STOCKS

June 1 corn stocks at 5.29 billion bushels run 14% above last year, with on-farm holdings up 16% to 2.96 billion. Heavy by any read. The story underneath is the 119-million-bushel miss versus the survey, and it traces to demand: indicated March-May disappearance of 3.74 billion bushels topped last year’s 3.50 billion, a sign feed and ethanol pulls held up better than the trade modeled. A lighter-than-feared print could take some pressure off the front of the corn market, though stocks this far above year-ago levels keep the broader picture well supplied.

Soybean stocks at 1.06 billion came in 11 million over the survey and 5% above a year ago. The mix is more interesting than the total: on-farm stocks fell 11% while off-farm rose 16%, and indicated disappearance jumped 18% year over year. Farmers sold, commercials carried, and demand ran hot. Paired with the bigger acreage, the bean supply side firmed up today, but that demand line is doing real work.

Wheat stocks at 920 million sit 8% above last year but 11 million under the survey, with on-farm holdings down 4%. A softer marketing-year starting point than the trade feared walking in, stacked on top of the smallest planted acreage in years, could lend price support moving forward.

For the grain complex, wheat is the standout, in our view. Stage #1 holds, and weather runs the table from here.

Soybeans

Soybeans got the bulls’ first real pulse of the week. The Nov ‘26 contract jumped 22 cents Thursday to close at $11.57, its highest settlement since early June, after days of grinding long liquidation. By Friday’s overnight session beans had handed a little back, with July off about 6 cents.

The lift came from soybean oil, firmer crude, and a weaker dollar, with Corn Belt forecasts pushing toward 100 degrees next week likely adding a weather premium to the price.

Demand backed the move: USDA reported net soybean sales of 455,400 metric tons, near the top of expectations and running 50% above the four-week average, with unknown destinations the largest buyer. Marex’s Tim Bulfer flagged persistent rumors of China sniffing around US beans. Demand showing up at lower prices is exactly what this market needed.

Everything now hinges on Tuesday’s USDA Planted Acreage and quarterly Grain Stocks reports, and beans carry real two-sided risk. The trade expects acreage above March intentions and June 1 stocks to be up roughly 4% year over year.

Watch for whether the late week strength holds through the report, or whether it was quarter-end positioning dressing up a thin tape.

Corn

Corn rode the same updraft. The Dec ‘26 contract added about 8 cents Thursday to settle near $4.43, then went quiet overnight with July hovering close to unchanged. The week’s mood, though, was caught by the title of Standard Grain’s Tuesday note: “Corn Futures: Where’s the Bottom?”

The fundamentals stayed heavy. USDA pegged net corn export sales at 743,100 metric tons, down 36% from the prior week and 27% below the four-week average, with Mexico again the top buyer. Tuesday’s data is expected to show planted corn acreage slipping from March intentions while June 1 stocks run about 16% above last year, a carryover that’s hard to look past.

The brighter signal sits overseas, where a brutal Western European heatwave drove European corn futures to contract highs and, per Bulfer, has French growers warning they could lose up to a third of their crop.

US weather is turning warmer and drier, with a ridge forecast to build over the midsection next week. That could lend support if it lingers into July pollination. Watch for Tuesday’s acreage print and the stretch just after the holiday, which Pro Farmer called one of the most pivotal trading periods of the year.

Wheat

Wheat finished Thursday higher with the rest of the complex, then rolled over. Friday’s close was the lowest for the week with the July contract clinging to the 200 day moving average.

The weather cut both ways. The European heat that lifted corn pushed wheat higher midweek, with drought entrenched across France and Russian spring wheat planting still behind, roughly 12% of the area unplanted, as Bulfer noted. The IGC nudged world wheat production up 1.0 million tonnes. Against that, the US winter wheat harvest is bearing down, and new-crop sales, while up 26% on the week to 504,500 metric tons, still lean on Mexico rather than a broad demand base.

Tuesday’s USDA reports land here too. The trade is pegging all-wheat June 1 stocks near 931 million bushels against 935 million in the last WASDE, and total wheat area around 43.8 million acres, essentially unchanged from intentions. Watch for harvest pressure to keep a lid on rallies unless those European production cuts deepen.

Sugar

Sugar saved its move for the bell. The ICE No. 11 July ‘26 contract spent most of the week pinned near multi-week lows, closing Monday at 13.35 cents and bottoming at 13.26, before ripping more than 3% on Friday to settle at 13.98, its high close of the week.

The early-week grind tracked crude. WTI slid to a 3.5-month low as the Strait of Hormuz reopened, and cheaper crude undercuts ethanol economics, which can pull Brazilian mills back toward making sugar instead of fuel, adding supply.

Friday leaned the other way. A softer dollar lit the fuse, and the bullish supply story got louder underneath it: India’s weather office trimmed its June-to-September monsoon forecast to 90% of the long-run average from 92%, raising questions about cane yields, while UNICA pegged Brazil Center-South sugar output through May at 6.838 million tonnes, down 2% year over year as mills favored ethanol. Czarnikow went a step further, flipping its 2026/27 global balance from a 1.4-million-tonne surplus to a small deficit.

Sugar’s stuck in a tug-of-war: weak crude and the broad surplus narrative on one side, the Indian monsoon and Brazil’s ethanol tilt on the other.

Watch for whether Friday’s pop was short covering off the lows or the start of something with legs, and keep an eye on the dollar, which has been calling the tune across commodities lately.

Ships are moving through the Strait of Hormuz again, at least as the ceasefire holds. Urea prices have cratered, the war premium has bled out of the grain complex, and the headlines are calling it relief.

For a corn investor the question underneath all of it is simple. Did this change the costs of growing corn, and does it impact corn futures-prices longer-term?

To answer that, you have to know which fertilizer actually matters, because the three big ones don’t matter equally.

Which Fertilizer Matters

Corn runs on three nutrients: nitrogen, phosphate, and potash.

Nitrogen is the one corn can’t go without. Corn is a grass, and grasses are nitrogen hogs. Illinois growers lay down roughly 180 to 200 pounds of nitrogen per acre, every spring, and it has to be every spring, because nitrogen leaches out with rain and gases off into the air.1 It won’t sit in the soil waiting for next year.

Phosphate on the other hand, banks in the soil allowing a grower to draw down the reserve for a season without much of a yield hit.

Potash works the same way as phosphate. Skip a year of potash and/or phosphate and the corn mostly shrugs.

Skip nitrogen and there’s no crop.

Hence the difference in the fertilizer line item for corn and soybean farmers.

Soybeans pull their own nitrogen out of the air through bacteria on their roots. Soybean farmers barely buy any fertilizer. In fact there is around a $168 dollar per acre difference between fertilizer costs for corn and soybeans. In Illinois the cost for 2026 is pegged at about $229 per acre for corn against roughly $61 for soybeans.2

And fertilizer is not a small line item.

Since 2020 it’s run 33 to 44 percent of corn operating costs.3

Nitrogen: Recovery & Relief

As the bombing began, New Orleans granular urea ran from the mid-$400s a short ton just before the war to a peak near $782 in mid-April, the highest print since 2022.4

The war hit nitrogen from two directions at once. Urea is made from natural gas. When the conflict suspended Qatari LNG flows, producers around the world felt the pinch as fertilizer shipments and the feedstock (natural gas) both seized up.5

Nitrogen was the most exposed to the strait in the first place. Roughly 49 percent of the world’s urea and 30 percent of its anhydrous ammonia ship through Hormuz, against about 16 percent of phosphate.6

The shock had a direct line into corn’s single biggest input.

A US-Iran ceasefire reopened the strait and ships have started crossing again.7 By June 24, fertilizer volumes were edging back toward something closer to normal on Bloomberg and Kpler tracking data, though traffic still ran well below pre-war levels.8 New Orleans urea is trading under $370 a short ton, below pre-war levels .9

Additionally, Thailand’s fertilizer association confirmed urea shortages were easing, and noted that Saudi producers having rerouted cargo overland to Red Sea, took some of the sting out of the bite.10

Signs of easing concerns are also showing up in India where fertilizer stocks sit at 19.6 million tons up 2.7 million year over year. What’s more, four Indian fertilizer ships crossed Hormuz on June 23.11

The nitrogen panic has largely bled out.

Impact to Corn Market

The spring nitrogen run-up added roughly the equivalent of $30 - $55 per acre to corn production costs.12 The impact, however, is limited to those farmers who did not secure their nitrogen prior to the war. Their margins got squeezed.

Of course, higher prices can help widen the margins, but the corn prices have already moved on.

December corn was $4.69 the day before the strikes, popped over $5.06 by May 13, then rolled back. Prices are now sub $4.40, and trading well below the pre-war level.

Still, today’s prices reflect the market expectation that U.S. farmers planted 95.3 million acres of corn this year. On June 30^th we get the acreage report which may show that farmers decided to plant soybeans instead of corn in order to save money on fertilizer.

Fewer acres planted would suggest lower production, which would add some level of fundamental support for corn prices.

What Corn Trades Next

The fertilizer episode did have an impact on markets, but it was never going to set the price on its own. With the nitrogen scare fading, corn reverts to the age old fundamental: weather

Weather

The Corn Belt is walking into the weather window right now. July is the whole ballgame, because that’s pollination and silking, the stretch that sets the national yield.

From here into early August, corn trades the forecast: Corn Belt temperature and rainfall, the Drought Monitor, and the 6-to-10 and 8-to-14 day outlooks.

Reports to watch:

· June 30, USDA Acreage plus Grain Stocks. Days away. Acreage sets final corn plantings, which is where any fertilizer-driven shift toward soybeans shows up in hard numbers. The quarterly stocks figure has a long history of surprising the market.

· Weekly Crop Progress and Conditions, Monday afternoons. The good-to-excellent rating is the running scorecard all season.

· Monthly WASDE. Yield, ending stocks, and the stocks-to-use ratio that frames the price level. The August report is the first survey-based yield and usually the biggest of the year.

Conclusion

The nitrogen scare has mostly cleared, and the war premium has bled out of futures. From here, corn trades summer fundamentals: July pollination, the June 30 acreage report, and demand into the fall.

Fertilizer may have an encore. In our view, if nitrogen stays elevated through fall booking, 2027 intentions could tilt toward soybeans. That’s a story for next year’s balance sheet.

This year’s crop is already in the ground, and the nitrogen scare has largely cleared.

What’s left to settle is the yield.

The valve cracked open in Hormuz. The crop gets settled over Iowa.

It was a holiday-shortened week. US markets closed Friday for the June 19^th holiday, so the tape only ran Monday through Thursday. The week-over-week moves were measured to Thursday’s close.

Grains had just come off one of the largest fund-liquidation stretches on record, and this week the complex clawed back from contract and multi-month lows. Soybeans set the tone, and China buying finally showed up.

Corn

Corn settled Thursday at 417.50 cents per bushel, up about 2 cents from Monday, after trading a roughly 16-cent range between 406.25 and 422.00 on the week. On paper, that was a quiet week. Underneath it was anything but.

Corn just logged the largest one-week liquidation event on record. Fund managers dumped more than 120,000 contracts in the week ending June 9, and close to 350,000 futures and options contracts from the peak net long carved in early May. Managed money flipped from net long roughly 115,000 contracts to net short about 5,000 in a single week.

The bounce came on spillover from the bean rally and short-covering. A 66,182-lot block of September $5.50/$6.00 call spreads traded Thursday, pushing corn call volume to its highest since May 2019. S&P Global Commodity Insights, meanwhile, raised its 2026 corn acreage estimate to 96 million acres, up 800,000 from its March read and above USDA’s 95.3-million-acre projection ahead of the June 30 acreage and stocks report. Pro Farmer’s Michael Cordonnier nudged his US corn yield up a bushel to 182.

So there is the expectation for plenty of corn. But the short position is fresh and the growing season is young. As Charlie Sernatinger put it, the funds’ new shorts are “very new, and vulnerable.” In our view, that setup leaves corn exposed to a squeeze if weather turns or China remains active in U.S. markets.

Soybeans

Front-month futures rallied Monday through Wednesday to a two-week high of 1140.50 cents, then gave some back Thursday to close at 1122.75, a net gain of about 3.5 cents on the week. The driver was demand, both the rumor of it and then the confirmation.

On Thursday the USDA confirmed a flash sale of 132,000 tons of soybeans to China and another 120,000 tons to unknown buyers, the first daily export sale to China in four months. The backdrop is the Trump-Xi agreement for China to buy 25 million metric tons of soybeans annually through 2028, and the market is watching follow-through closely.

Still, soybean oil fell sharply Thursday to its lowest since April 14, down roughly 16% since June 1, as the US-Iran peace deal knocked crude lower and dimmed biofuel demand appeal. That capped gains across the soy complex. Notably, crop conditions held firm at 66% good to excellent.

There is still a 10% import tax on US beans into China on top of the standard 3% duty, so the private buyers are paying the tax out of pocket and one flash sale is not a trend. But the positioning matters. It appears the selling has exhausted for now. We think the pace of Chinese follow-through is an important variable to watch from here.

Wheat

Wheat was the best performer in the complex. Chicago front-month ran from $5.898 Monday to a Thursday close of $6.058, up about 2.7% on the week, touching a two-week high of $6.182 before traders pared risk into the long weekend.

USDA raised its winter wheat good-to-excellent rating to 27%, up two points and the first improvement in five weeks, though it remains the lowest reading for the week since 1989. Harvest was running fast: 25% of the winter crop was in the bin versus 11% a week earlier and well ahead of last year’s 9% pace. A harvest moving that quickly through diminished fields reinforced the thin-crop story.

The tape is turning. Sernatinger noted calendar spreads tightening and wheat gaining on corn since the start of the month, and read the week’s action as “some kind of bottom.” In our view, the winter-wheat condition floor and the fast harvest pace could keep a bid under the market if the export side firms up.

Sugar

ICE No. 11 raw sugar traded a narrow 13.56 to 14.00 cents per pound and ended Thursday at 13.59, essentially flat to slightly lower, after completing a six-session losing streak earlier in the week.

Crude was the culprit. The US-Iran interim peace deal and the resulting drop in oil prices weighed on sugar, because cheaper oil reduces the incentive for Brazilian mills to divert cane toward ethanol, which leaves more cane crushed for sugar. That near-term overhang sits against a tightening medium-term picture. Trader Czarnikow revised its 2026-27 global balance to a slight deficit of 0.1 million tons, down from a prior surplus estimate of 1.4 million, citing lower Brazilian Center-South production as mills favor ethanol.

Then there is weather. NOAA declared El Nino conditions on June 11 with a 62% to 63% probability of a very strong event through the October-to-January window. El Nino has historically pressured cane yields in India, Thailand, and Southeast Asia. In our view, the near-term tape is heavy, but the medium-term supply risk could firm up if the El Nino read holds.

June WASDE reports rarely move the needle, and this one mostly held to script. USDA left the U.S. corn and soybean balance sheets virtually untouched and confined the action to old-crop bookkeeping. Wheat carried what little news there was, and it cut both ways: a smaller new-crop production figure and a carryout 20 million bushels below the analyst average, paired with a 50-cent cut to the season-average price forecast.

We remain in Golden Grain Cycle Stage #1, with prices chopping around cost-of-production. May’s report tested the ceiling. June took some of the pressure off, particularly in global corn, where bigger South American and Indian crops rebuilt part of the cushion. Summer weather and the June 30 Acreage report are the next gating factors.

CORN

USDA nudged 2025/26 U.S. corn carryout up 3 million bushels to 2,145 million, 8 above the 2,137-million analyst average. The change nets out small adjustments to imports, ethanol use, and exports based on data to date. The 2025/26 season-average price forecast held at $4.15 per bushel.

New crop was a copy of May. Production held at 15,995 million bushels on a 183.0 bushel-per-acre yield, both within a hair of consensus (15,989 and 182.9). Ending stocks ticked up 3 million to 1,960 million, 13 above the 1,947-million analyst average. The 2026/27 season-average price forecast held at $4.40 per bushel. U.S. new-crop stocks-to-use holds at 12.1%.

The global outlook is where June pushed back on May’s bullish print. USDA raised 2025/26 world ending stocks 6.4 mmt to 303.36 million metric tons, with India (sharply higher area and yield per the latest government data), Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay all producing more than previously estimated. That bigger old-crop cushion carried forward: 2026/27 world ending stocks moved up 3.7 mmt to 281.22 million. The figure still points to the tightest global corn carryout in over a decade, but the direction this month was looser, not tighter. World new-crop stocks-to-use sits at 21.3%, up from 21.1% in May.

SOYBEANS

USDA didn’t touch the 2026/27 U.S. soybean balance sheet. Ending stocks held at 310 million bushels, right on top of the 311-million analyst average. Production stays at 4,435 million bushels on a 53.0 yield, crush holds at 2,750 million, and exports hold at 1,630 million. The 2026/27 season-average price forecasts were unchanged: $11.40 per bushel for soybeans, 70 cents per pound for oil, and $310 per short ton for meal. New-crop stocks-to-use at 6.9% remains very tight.

The old-crop action was all demand-side reshuffling. Crush moved up another 20 million bushels to 2,650 million on stronger meal exports and domestic disappearance, while exports dropped 20 million to 1,510 million based on Census data to date. The two offset, leaving 2025/26 ending stocks unchanged at 340 million bushels, in line with the 339-million analyst average. Soybean oil used for biofuel was raised for 2025/26 to 14.55 billion pounds. The 2025/26 season-average price forecast held at $10.40 per bushel. Old-crop stocks-to-use at 8.0% sits below the 10% line that historically starts to support prices.

Globally, 2026/27 ending stocks edged up 0.1 mmt to 124.88 million metric tons, mainly on Argentina, whose 2025/26 crop was raised 2 mmt to 50 million tons. Brazil’s 2026/27 crop held at 186 mmt. World new-crop stocks-to-use eases to 28.3% from 29.3% in the old crop.

WHEAT

Wheat carried the report’s only real news. USDA lowered 2026/27 all-wheat production 18 million bushels to 1,543 million, largely on smaller Hard Red Winter output reported in the June 11 Crop Production release. The all-wheat yield dropped half a bushel to 47.0 bushels per acre. With no other balance sheet changes, new-crop ending stocks fell 18 million to 744 million bushels, 20 below the 764-million analyst average and 20% under 2025/26. New-crop stocks-to-use steps down to 39.7%.

Then the other edge: USDA cut the 2026/27 season-average price forecast 50 cents to $6.00 per bushel, citing expectations for futures and cash prices over the marketing year. A smaller crop and a lower price forecast in the same table suggests USDA may see burdensome old-crop supplies, not new-crop production, setting the price for now.

Old-crop ending stocks held at 935 million bushels, 7 below the 942-million analyst average. The 2025/26 season-average price forecast nudged up a nickel to $5.05. Old-crop stocks-to-use at 46.1% is still unambiguously burdensome.

Globally, 2026/27 ending stocks were raised 0.4 mmt to 275.42 million metric tons. Production gains for Russia (up 2.0 mmt to 88.0 on near-ideal weather), Turkey (up 1.5 to a record 22.5), and Ukraine (up 0.5 to 23.5) more than offset a 2.0 mmt cut to Australia. World new-crop stocks-to-use holds at 33.4%, tightening modestly from 34.0% in the old crop but still burdensome by historical standards.

The grain complex got clobbered this week. July corn fell to a contract low, Chicago wheat logged its longest losing streak in a decade, and soybeans gave back most of the move that had carried them over $12 a bushel. One theme tied it together. The war and weather risk premium that had built into grains since the US-Iran conflict came back out of the market all at once, ahead of the June 11 WASDE.

The Bloomberg Grains Spot Subindex fell roughly 5% on the week, back to pre-Iran war levels last seen before February. Urea prices tumbled, stripping out a bullish input-cost story that had supported the complex for months. Rain moved into a dry Midwest, and fund managers kept liquidating long positions every session.

Corn

July corn fell from 444 cents on June 2 to 418 cents by Friday, a drop of about 26 cents (roughly 5.9%) and the biggest weekly decline since February 2025. Intraday lows touched $4.17 on Friday, the lowest since January 16. Widespread rain across the corn belt pulled the drought premium out of the market, with 82% of Iowa’s crop rated good to excellent.

Demand did not cushion the break. No fresh Chinese buying materialized despite a US-China summit pledge of $17 billion in farm purchases. A 136,000-ton corn sale to South Korea got shrugged off.

There is a lot of corn, and the market knows it. A Bloomberg survey pegs 2026-27 US ending stocks at 1.947 billion bushels, hovering right around the psychological 2 billion level. In our view, an upside surprise in stocks or yield at the June 11 WASDE could extend the selling pressure.

Wheat

July soft red winter wheat fell to $5.81 3/4 by Thursday, down about 3% on the week. Hard red winter wheat dropped as much as 2.3% on Monday alone, its ninth straight session of losses and the longest streak since 2015. Stale longs were the dominant seller all week as managed money kept covering.

The tape sold off while the supply story turned the other way. ABARES cut Australia’s 2026/27 wheat crop forecast 26% year-on-year to 26.7 million tons on dry weather and higher input costs. Russia’s spring wheat planting is running at its slowest pace since 2018, 12% behind last year as of late May. And US spring wheat conditions came in at 47% good to excellent, well below the 60% the trade expected, a genuine surprise.

Rabobank flagged a tighter global balance and expects firmer prices ahead. We think that gap between a bearish tape and a bullish balance sheet is the thing to watch.

Soybeans

July soybeans fell from about $11.93 on June 1 to $11.28 3/4 by Thursday, a drop of roughly 65 cents (about 5.4%) to multi-month lows. New Section 301 tariffs announced Thursday raised fears of Chinese retaliation on US bean purchases, the market’s most acute demand worry. Falling crude dragged soybean oil and the broader complex lower.

The technical damage was real. July beans took out the four-week low and traded through the February 27 close of 1157 1/4, the day before the Iran bombing started. China is the swing factor, and no confirmed purchases have landed against the summit pledge.

The balance sheet is not screaming tight. A Bloomberg survey sees 2026-27 ending stocks at 311 million bushels, essentially unchanged from USDA’s May figure, and Pro Farmer’s crop condition index for beans is tracking just below last year at 368.1 versus 369.7. The crop got planted into good weather, and the early read is fine.

Sugar

ICE No. 11 raw sugar fell for at least three straight sessions through Thursday, touching 14.14 cents intraday and failing to hold a key level at 14.65 cents, a weekly decline of roughly 2 to 3%. Two forces are pressing down. A large Brazilian cane harvest is coming, and falling crude reduces the incentive for Brazilian mills to divert cane into ethanol, which points to more sugar output.

The balance sheet backs the bearish read. A NovaCana survey of 12 companies averages a 2.97-million-ton global surplus for 2025/26, and the International Sugar Organization recently raised its own surplus estimate to 2.24 million tons on a 182-million-ton production forecast. A proposed 25% US Section 301 tariff on Brazilian goods includes sugar and ethanol, though mills are expected to see limited direct impact since the US is not a primary destination. FAO reported sugar prices up 7.5% month-on-month in May, a gain the week’s price action has since reversed.