Good morning!
Grain futures steady-mixed overnight… As of 6:00 a.m. CST, May corn was steady. May soybeans were 1 1/4 cents higher. May soybean meal was down $2.70 and May bean oil was 72 points higher. May SRW wheat was down 2 1/4 cents and May HRW wheat was 1/2 cent higher. On tap today for the grains is the weekly USDA export sales report. The key outside markets see Nymex WTI crude oil prices higher and trading around $93.00 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index is slightly up early today. The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note is presently 4.37 percent.
Latest on the war in Iran…
--White House insists peace talks ongoing; Tehran rejects U.S. overtures
-- U.S. preparing options for “final blow” in Iran, may include ground forces, major bombing
--U.S. troop movements fan fears of a risky ground attack on Iran
--The Israel Defense Forces completes a wave of strikes in Isfahan in Iran
--Iran lawmakers working on a draft bill to impose safe passage toll for Strait of Hormuz
--U.S. has 15-point peace proposal that Pakistan delivered to Iran
-- Vice President JD Vance may travel to Pakistan for Iran talks this weekend, CNN reports
--Trump social media post, just out: “The Iranian negotiators are very different and ‘strange.’ They are ‘begging’ us to make a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only ‘looking at our proposal.’ WRONG!!! They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty! President DJT”
Heatwave over Plains, Midwest today… The National Weather Service today said “record-breaking heat has been making headlines over the past couple weeks, and we aren’t done with it yet.” Above-average temperatures will persist across the Southwest and Plains and expand into the Midwest today. The greatest temperature anomalies are expected from the central/southern High Plains to Illinois and Indiana, where high temperatures are forecast to reach 25-35 degrees above average. Temperatures will challenge numerous daily records today from the Southwest to the Midwest. The intensity of the heat should turn down a notch on Friday, but above-average temperatures are still expected in the Southwest and Southeast. A strong cold front will bring relief from the heat to the central and eastern U.S. by the end of the week. The cold front will push south across the northern half of the nation today, then push past the south-central and southeastern U.S. on Friday. In the western U.S., a frontal boundary will be accompanied by strong gusty winds, which will support elevated to critical fire weather conditions across the central/southern Rockies and Plains today.
HRW wheat premium over SRW at highest level in seven months… Hard red winter wheat futures traded at its biggest premium to soft red winter in more than seven months, as heat in the Plains and Midwest is set to exacerbate the stress on wheat crops there. Overnight, May HRW carried a 24-cent premium to May SRW futures.“U.S. winter wheat conditions have slumped in the past month as drought impacts the Plains…. Further hot and dry weather forecast over the coming days could worsen the situation,” said a Bloomberg report. Hard red wheat’s premium is the highest since last August. “Wheat prices have also recently climbed due to geopolitical uncertainty, with mixed signals around the conclusion of the war in Iran,” said Bloomberg.
Trump-Xi to meet in China in Mid-May… President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold their summit meeting in Beijing on May 14-15, following a delay due to the war with Iran. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced at midday Wednesday that Xi would visit Washington at a date later this year, and said the administration has “always estimated approximately four-to-six weeks” for the war in Iran to be completed. “The rescheduled meeting will pose a test of how comfortable Trump and Xi are with the status quo on trade, U.S. support for Taiwan, and the fallout from the U.S. strikes on Iran that spurred a spike in oil prices,” said Bloomberg. “There was a discussion about the rescheduling of the meeting between the President and President Xi. President Xi understood that it’s very important for the President to be here throughout these combat operations right now. He understood, obviously the request to postpone and accepted it, which is why we have new dates on the books,” Leavitt said. China and the U.S. remained in communication about Trump’s visit, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a regular briefing in Beijing.
New York Fed: U.S. credit market turns more dysfunctional this month… A New York Federal Reserve index on Wednesday signaled that the U.S. corporate bond market saw more dislocations in March, with the high-grade bond market more bruised than its high-yield counterpart. The Corporate Bond Market Distress Index, which the Federal Reserve of New York launched in 2022 to assess brewing risks in the U.S. credit market, jumped earlier this month to the highest level since May of 2025. The investment-grade component of the index last week surged to the highest since December 2023, Bloomberg reported. The index, based on a 0 to 1 scale, with 1 showing the highest stress, rose to 0.16 from 0.09 in late February. The high-grade index rose to 0.28 from 0.09. The investment-grade sub-index ended the period around the historical 60th percentile - meaning conditions are more stressed than usual. “Credit market functioning deteriorated over the past month,” the New York Fed said on Wednesday. “The investment-grade CMDI sector increased more than its high-yield counterpart.” The index measures the functioning of the corporate bond market by aggregating changes in indicators including the pricing of newly issued bonds and measures of secondary market liquidity, said Bloomberg.
Fed Governor Miran raises his interest rate projection… Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran said he moved up his projection for where U.S. interest rates should end the year by half a percentage point in response to disappointing inflation data since officials last issued forecasts in December. “I boosted my policy rate by half a percent, not due to oil and Iran, but due to the inflation data that we received,” Miran said Wednesday during an event in New York, referring to the economic projections policymakers published after their policy meeting last week. “That puts my projection at about neutral,” he said and as reported by Bloomberg. Miran voted against the Fed’s March 18 decision to leave rates steady, preferring a quarter-point cut. Miran said a percentage point of rate cuts this year is still appropriate in order to bring rates to levels that would be neutral for the economy.
Malaysian palm oil futures rally… Malaysian palm oil futures rose over 1% to above MYR 4,500 per MT on Thursday, rebounding from losses in the previous two sessions, supported by a weaker ringgit and firmer edible oil prices on the Dalian and Chicago markets. Gains in crude oil also lifted sentiment, amid expectations of de-escalation in the Middle East conflict. Strong export data further underpinned prices, as cargo surveyors estimated Malaysian palm oil shipments for March 1–25 surged between 38.4% and 50.6% from the same period in February, pointing to robust post-Eid demand and prompting fresh buying interest. However, upside momentum was capped by projections that imports from top buyer India may decline to around 680,000 MT in March, down from 847,689 MT in February. Meanwhile, in Indonesia, the world’s largest producer, export taxes could be lifted in April, as authorities move to accelerate the rollout of the B50 biodiesel mandate.
Cattle futures bulls enjoying price uptrends… April live cattle on Wednesday fell $0.95 to $234.425. March feeders lost $0.65 to $350.05 and hit a three-week high early on. The cattle futures markets saw pauses amid fledgling price uptrends in place on the daily bar chart. Selling interest was limited amid improved investor risk appetite in the general marketplace. However, buying interest was squelched by a big drop in Choice-grade boxed beef prices. Higher cash cattle prices were seen in early trade this week, albeit very light. USDA Tuesday reported cash cattle trading at $236.00. The agency on Monday reported cash trading last week averaged $235.08. In the Plains states, another heat wave in the next couple days will be stressful to livestock in the region.
Mild technical selling in lean hog futures… April lean hog futures on Wednesday fell $0.15 to $90.90 and hit a nine-week low. The hog futures market saw mild technical selling pressure amid a price downtrend in place on the daily chart. The rally in the cash hog market has stalled out and prices are starting to slip. The latest CME lean hog index is down 7 cents at $91.71. Today’s projected cash index price is down another 5 cents at $91.65. The national direct five-day rolling average cash hog price quote Wednesday was $69.44.