Wheat

Chicago started Wednesday softer after Tuesday’s USDA shock. December ’25 CBOT wheat traded in early dealings around $5.02¼/bu (about 5¾¢ under yesterday’s $5.08 close) as the heavier all-wheat crop and larger Sept. 1 stocks kept rallies contained despite active tender interest from Asia/North Africa. Europe’s export cadence stayed sluggish and fresh Polish/EC output upgrades added supply weight, while U.S. winter wheat planting remained broadly seasonal into a warm, dry fieldwork window.

Corn

Corn also opened a touch lower, with December ’25 near $4.13/bu (roughly 2½¢ below Tuesday’s $4.15½ settle) as traders digested a bigger-than-expected Sept. 1 stocks figure and watched Mississippi/Delta river stages slip again into October. Weekly inspections remained firm, but last week’s surprise ethanol stock build tempered near-term grind optimism even as Center-South Brazil’s first-crop seeding advanced.

Soybeans

November ’25 soybeans began the day near $9.97/bu (about 4¾¢ below Tuesday’s $10.01¾ finish) with funds leaning net short across beans, meal, and oil. U.S. shipments improved but still trailed a typical early-season pace without China, while Brazil’s planting sprint and a drier turn across central states raised germination risk on earliest fields—keeping product spreads and South American origin in the driver’s seat.

Global market drivers shaping today’s trading

USDA’s “Stocks & Small Grains” reset continues to reverberate. All-wheat production was lifted to 1.984 bbu and Sept. 1 wheat stocks to 2.12 bbu, both above expectations, while corn stocks printed 1.532 bbu versus ~1.336 bbu expected. Soybean stocks were modestly tighter than feared at 316 mbu, but the mix reinforced a broadly bearish-to-mixed tone across grains and the soy complex.

Shutdown watch meets data migration. Markets also priced the risk that a federal government shutdown could disrupt upcoming USDA publications, just as the Department migrates decades of archived reports from Cornell’s Mann Library to a new National Agricultural Library platform—another potential speed-bump for data-dependent trade.

Europe and Poland added supply heft as exports lag. The European Commission raised EU soft-wheat output to ~132.6 MMT and Poland’s statistics office boosted 2025 grain estimates (wheat to 13.4 MMT; total grains 37.1 MMT), even as EU soft-wheat exports since July 1 totaled ~4.37 MMT, down 31% y/y amid incomplete French reporting. The combination kept Chicago wheat rallies on a short leash.

Black Sea signals stayed pivotal. Ukraine reported ~30.4 MMT of grains harvested from 63% of area; Russia eyed fresh access to China for winter wheat and barley and lowered its wheat export duty to 617.7 rubles/ton from Oct. 1, while declaring an agricultural emergency in Rostov after drought/frost damage—an internal reshuffle with quality/logistics implications.

Brazil’s soy moratorium stays—for now. Antitrust regulator CADE allowed the Amazon Soy Moratorium to continue through 2025 while its investigation proceeds, reducing near-term ESG and deforestation-rule uncertainty just as the world’s top soybean exporter sprints through early fieldwork.

South American pace and lineups. AgRural pegged soybean planting at 3.2% and Center-South first-crop corn at 32%; ANEC guided Sept. exports to ~7.13 MMT for soybeans and ~7.27 MMT for corn. CEPEA noted softer spot corn in several Brazilian regions as users lean on stocks, while soybean oil’s share of crush margins hit a record on resilient biodiesel demand.

Veg-oil math tightens into late-2025/early-2026. Indonesia raised the CPO reference price and kept taxes/levies intact while projecting 2025 palm exports toward 30 MMT; Malaysia’s Sept. shipments rose ~7–10% m/m and futures hovered in the mid-4,300s ringgit. The firmer palm backdrop kept soyoil-palm linkages taut.

Weather carves uneven paths. Warm, mostly dry U.S. Northern Plains/Midwest favor row-crop harvest but reignite low-water risk on the Mississippi; southern Brazil sees scattered showers while central areas trend drier mid-week; Argentina retains supportive soil moisture with another front due this weekend. Europe turns colder, the Black Sea gets timely rain for Ukraine (while parts of SW Russia stay dry), and India closes its strongest monsoon since 2020.

South Africa, Canada, and EU corn round out the fundamentals. South Africa’s crop body lifted 2025 commercial corn output to 16.2 MMT; Canada’s 2025/26 rapeseed production was nudged up to 19.1 MMT on favorable harvest progress and NDVI; and poor conditions in SE Europe pulled EU-27 corn output down to 56.5 MMT in the latest update—an uneven global balance that continues to shuffle import math.