05/16/2025 Rumors and What Changed?

On the Grains
When the boat starts to roll over in high-frequency trading, it can go quickly. Yesterday, rumors were enough to pressure the soybean oil market to a limit-lower and spill into soybeans. Rumors have been circulating that the EPA is not going to the 5.25 and instead is sticking to the 4.65 billion gallons.  NOPA crush numbers were bullish, coming in at 190.22 million bushels at the top end of the trading range and beating the average estimates by 6 million bushels. The one negative was that the soybean oil stocks were at the top end of the range at 1.527 billion pounds. The bottom line is that there is no reason not to expect the crush numbers to meet or exceed the USDA’s 2.42-billion-bushel estimate. More on the EPA in the Headlines and Hotlines section. So as far as our recco, it appears that we were about ½ day late, as of now, however, with nothing written in stone on the EPA, no major weather changes, we will hold tight and continue to work them. The drought monitor maps show no relief in the upper/western half of the corn belt. The map on the left is the current map from yesterday morning, and the one on the right is the previous map, as we posted the subsoil moisture map yesterday. While it’s early, this is concerning, and we will not chase the market lower unless we see moisture hitting the topsoil.