CBOT Weekly: Grain prices showing weakness

Glacier FarmMedia — The United States Department of Agriculture’s monthly supply/demand estimates released on July 11 were still having an effect on Chicago Board of Trade prices on July 16.

Tom Lilja, an analyst for Progressive Ag in Fargo, N.D. said the estimates confirmed growing wheat stocks — 890 million bushels for 2025-26 compared to 851 million in 2024-25 — as well as 504 million bushels of 2025-26 spring wheat production, exceeding trade estimates by 30 million. As a result, Minneapolis spring wheat futures tumbled compared to their Chicago soft and Kansas City hard red counterparts.

“Spring wheat ratings improved (four percentage points) last week, which was a big surprise. The trade thought it would be steady for the week,” he said.

Lilja added that corn futures were oversold and benefited from technical buying. Exports for the 2024-25 marketing year were revised to a record 2.75 billion bushels, showing strong demand.

“That would be higher than 2021 which was the previous record. That’s when Brazil got a little short on a crop and China was buying quite a bit of corn from us. The demand side for corn has been pretty good all year,” he said. “There’s an expectation the crop is getting bigger right now. It’s also giving the grains a challenge to move higher.”

Soybean prices were seeing seasonal pressure as the new South American crop comes online.

The ongoing trade war between the U.S. and other nations also caused markets to react negatively, Lilja added.

“There’s kind of a headwind on the market. We might end up having tariffs announced (later this week). So there’s been a reluctancy for the trade to buy these markets,” he said.

With prices being oversold and/or at support levels, Lilja thinks there is room to the upside in the coming days.

“I think the market will hold these low levels (for now) and we’re seeing some export sales announcements. Prices are pretty cheap right now. For the rest of this week, we’ll see some higher markets,” he said