Katie Geerdes

The Commstock Report is a twice daily market report. 09/04/2026 Harvest Has a Super El Nino Threat PLEASE REFER TO THE BROKER COMMENTARY PAGE FOR UPDATES!! Click Above to Watch Brian's Afternoon Market Update Weather may remain the biggest wildcard facing farmers as September begins. After a stretch of hotter, drier conditions across much of the Corn Belt, the outlook shifts wetter, which is still welcome to some but a concern for those at risk of rain becoming too much at exactly the wrong time. The developing Super El Nino is at play as it brings significant changes to weather patterns and raises the threat of having harvest disrupted by episodes of heavy precipitation, hail, and wind. Recent storms demonstrate the potential for crop damage. August featured tornados and a derecho that toppled corn fields across the Midwest. There were also 'macrobursts' and other wind events that were evident in the trees and powerlines downed across the region. Loss totals did not rival the notorious 2020 derecho, but individual impacts were significant and every affected field reduces production in a way that must be accounted for as harvest estimates are dialed in. The focus will continue to shift from weather's determination of…

The Commstock Report is a twice daily market report. 09/04/2026 Forward Guidance from Jackson Hole PLEASE REFER TO THE BROKER COMMENTARY PAGE FOR UPDATES!! 30(57.7%) Click Above to Watch Brian's Afternoon Market Update The Fed meets annually each summer at Jackson Hole, Wyoming to let the fresh air clear their vision for monetary policy. I do not begrudge them that. One comment from Jackson that surprised me was an attribution from a Fed Governor over following Dr. Ed Yardeni. Who is that? “Edward Yardeni is an Israeli-born American economist and the president of Yardeni Research, which offers economic research and recommendations to clients. He is also the former chief economist for EF Hutton, Prudential Securities, and C. J. Lawrence. (Wikipedia)” It is unusual for a Fed banker to name someone specific that they go to for market perspective so that makes Yardeni special. I too have become familiar with his work. I would describe him as a wall-climber as Yardeni has advised staying aboard the bull market as it… “climbs the wall of worry.”  Yardeni is a stock market super-bull forecasting 8400 S&P yet this year resulting from historical corporate earnings growth. The worry that is the highest mountain to get over, is…

The Commstock Report is a twice daily market report. 09/02/2026 Do You Have A Trillion Dollars To Spare? PLEASE REFER TO THE BROKER COMMENTARY PAGE FOR UPDATES!! Click Above to Watch Brian's Afternoon Market Update Every so often we read headlines about record US debt after it has achieved some new threshold. Most have grown numb to it as people struggle to comprehend the numbers. What does a trillion dollars even look like? It takes 1,000 of a billion to reach a trillion. If you stacked $100 bills on top of each other, a trillion dollars would reach out into space. Now take that times 40, and that is the level of US debt we have now achieved. It took our country 200 years (1789 – 1989) to grow from zero to 3 trillion in debt. We have now added another 37 trillion in just the last 36 years. Total debt is now over $40 trillion dollars. Does this really mean anything? The real measure is comparing how fast debt rises compared to the economy. If I owe a trillion dollars on my farm mortgage, that sounds bad at first, unless of course the value of the farm has risen to where…

The Commstock Report is a twice daily market report. 09/01/2026 Peter Zeihan on Biofuels PLEASE REFER TO THE BROKER COMMENTARY PAGE FOR UPDATES!! Click Above to Watch Brian's Afternoon Market Update Zeihan recently aired a video that caught the attention of many biofuels' supporters who were troubled by it. He is a well-known geo-politicist demographer and author that has spoken at many commodity conferences. His point of view has proven worthy of consideration. Zeihan Transcript Excerpt: "Today we're taking a question from the Patreon crowd, specifically how I see US agriculture evolving over the next several years, specifically in light of the balance among corn, soy, and biofuels, with ethanol being at the top of the list. A real quick history lesson for those of you not familiar with the space: the United States has used gasoline and diesel for pretty much everything for transport for the entire industrial age until we got to the early 2000s, when we got a fuel mandate from the federal government that said a certain percentage of most gasoline that you pump has to have a certain percentage of ethanol. In most states, it's in the 10 to 15% range. Lots of people have bitched and moaned…

The Commstock Report is a twice daily market report. 08/31/2026 You can see that there is about 50 BPA Missing! PLEASE REFER TO THE BROKER COMMENTARY PAGE FOR UPDATES!! Click Above to Watch Brian's Afternoon Market Update These were ears of our corn checked on one of our farms during the GammaQ crop tour earlier this month. The tip-back that was evident was a surprise. It probably should not have been considering the record high average July heat when stress degree days began to accumulate. If there are enough ears and they fill well there is still yield potential. The tour estimated our average yield on this field to be 250 bpa so it was not the end of the world. Our corn never showed drought stress but the crop responded to the heat extreme nevertheless. We believe that we have 300 bpa yield potential in our genetics and choice of maturity each season. We have never averaged 300 bpa so something happens every year to tip back the crop somehow. Climate scientists reference heat this summer as being comparable to 1936 which brings back the 89-year drought cycle narrative. If farmers in the plains states still farmed using the practices of the…

The Commstock Report is a twice daily market report. 08/28/2026 Watch Out for Weaker Basis and Spreads PLEASE REFER TO THE BROKER COMMENTARY PAGE FOR UPDATES!! Click Above to Watch Brian's Afternoon Market Update New Recommendation:  Recco #1:  Sell 10% of 2026 corn with March 2027 futures at $5.50. Recco #2   Sell 15% of 2026 wheat with March 2027 Chicago wheat futures at $8.00.   Recco #3:  Sell 10% of 2027 wheat with December 2027 Chicago wheat futures at $8.00.  Recco #4:  Sell 10% of 2027 soybeans with November 2027 futures at $12.50. Today is the last day for September grain longs to be liquidated or rolled before the risk of taking delivery comes on Monday. You would not expect many deliveries in this environment where the nearby corn spread is historically wide and while there are very few traders with old-crop soybeans available to let go of. The September/December corn futures spread is somewhat of a standout for it being the third year in a row that it has moved out past 20 cents, which is the rough calculation of "full carry" for offering compete coverage of the costs of storage, insurance, and interest associated with holding the grain. It may be partly that…

The Commstock Report is a twice daily market report. 08/28/2026 Click Above to Watch the Morning Market Talk Video Ending On A High Note On the Grains Grain and soy markets strengthened overnight as bulls look to cap off a strong week of trade with a flurry. Corn, soybeans and the winter wheat markets all marked contracts highs overnight, while front-month futures jumped to fresh multi-year highs on the continuation charts. What a week bulls have had – to this point. Traders await EPA’s decision on small refinery exemptions for the 2025 compliance year that will have implications for corn and soyoil (soybeans by association) demand – and therefore could be a major market mover. There have been lots of rumors and newswire reports this week citing “people familiar with the situation.” As of Thursday evening, nothing had been finalized, though the latest report from Reuters said the Trump administration was considering a plan that would increase biofuel quotas for the 2027 calendar year by roughly 500 million gallons to offset any damage caused by bigger-than-originally-planned SREs, which in theory could be exempted later as well. The administration seems hell bent on trying to lower fuel prices by granting more SREs. Good…

The Commstock Report is a twice daily market report. 08/27/2026 Asymmetric attack on NATO PLEASE REFER TO THE BROKER COMMENTARY PAGE FOR UPDATES!! Click Above to Watch Brian's Afternoon Market Update Another something else you should know about that is not widely common knowledge being under-reported by the primary media or not having yet made the dominant headline of the day, is the aggressive warming conflict between Russia and NATO that is unfolding. Could be a reason why US CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a trip to Moscow this week. That news was kept quiet compared to Dolly Parton death. As with stories such as the security risk of the Qatari Air Force One, US missile inventory depletion, the logistical challenges faced by our military to sustain itself in the Iran war that were not news until they were, there are other similar story lines waiting in the wings under the surface that would be "news" to a majority of Americans still in the dark. Here is another one that should be a banner headline that we will spotlight: Kiev Post: Chuck Pfarrer retired Seal Team 6 Leader Abbreviated Transcript: "In the early evening of August 5, 2026, a quadcopter penetrated the controlled…

The Commstock Report is a twice daily market report. 08/26/2026 If the Toothpaste wasn't out of the Tube…it is Now! PLEASE REFER TO THE BROKER COMMENTARY PAGE FOR UPDATES!! Click Above to Watch Brian's Afternoon Market Update After opening the US beef market to imports, the initials MAGA appear to mean Make Argentina Great Again. Argentina First…US cattlemen get the leftovers. When Donald Trump definitively says that beef prices were too high and he intended to lower them…you should believe him. There is the political calculation that there are more beef consumers who vote than there are cattle producers and heck…most cattle producers will vote for him anyway…he is sure of that. Cattlemen will huff and puff voicing indignation over Trumps action that will accordingly bring cattle prices down with beef prices. I told you repeatedly in previous reports that it is 2026 and something would happen cyclically that would produce a big break in cattle prices this year. Trump gave fair warning. The Trump administration, with the support of Ag Secretary Rollins, was blaming high beef prices on the previous administration like they always do. That should be good enough for many still on team Trump though the number of devoted…