July 18, 2025

Happy Friday. Ag markets saw mostly higher closes to end the week at the CBOT on Friday, led to the upside by wheat futures which were up around 2.5%. Bean oil was the lone member of the space in the red to end the day, with a follow through of yesterday's pop failing to make it much past mid-morning. As we head into next week, trader focus will likely remain primarily on US production estimates and weather forecasts, with the August crop report and private yield tours seemingly being the next fundamental market flashpoints in the near to intermediate term. Price action this week was indicative of a possible short-term bottom, but other than that, we have little evidence that the broader downtrend is in any real danger of ending.

CORN

The corn market ended the week in the green on Friday, with short-covering presumably the dominate theme throughout the day as news remained rather quiet. We've talked about it all week, but its just all about US crop sizes at this point and weather forecasts that are contributing. It seems there's some kind of value just below the $4 mark, which the looks to be the short-term support level going into next week. On the upside, initial objectives will be the gaps left last week, with the July highs the next target above here.

SOYBEANS

Like corn, news in the soybean market to end the week was rather quiet, with their not being a lot in terms of headlines that had much of an impact on prices. Soybean oil started the morning at new highs for the week, but was unable to sustain the buying as the two-day sprint finally ran out of gas. It will be interesting to see which side of even the fund position comes down on this afternoon, as managed money continues to not have a lot of interest in building any sort of sizeable position in either direction

WHEAT

The wheat market was the strongest of the bunch on a percentage basis on Friday, though there also wasn't a lot of anything specific here to blame the buying on. Like corn, short-covering was likely a feature throughout today, with funds likely banking some profits from the rest of the week's down move.