The Commstock Report

The Commstock Report is a twice daily market report. 10/23/2026 Re-ownership Ideas for Harvest Pressure Easing Soon PLEASE REFER TO THE BROKER COMMENTARY PAGE FOR UPDATES!! Click Above to Watch Brian's Afternoon Market Update Most farmers are likely to make sales during harvest, many had already contracted sales ahead of harvest. The University of Illinois once conducted a survey that found a surprising 91 percent of farmers made pre-harvest crop sales. Other studies have aligned with USDA estimates to show farmers usually having roughly one-third of corn and soybean crops contracted before harvest, although that number would fluctuate according to price levels. Trader positions data suggests that farmers may have conducted pre-harvest sales to a greater degree this year, taking advantage of previously much higher futures prices. In the market's run up to September, farmer selling was more than absorbed by speculative buying. Farmer selling has swamped the market since then. The sheer size of the ongoing grain harvest was overwhelming buying interest in the futures market as farmers sold large volumes of corn and soybeans while speculative traders simultaneously reduced their exposure. Now that harvest has advanced past its halfway point, seasonal pressure can begin to ease as more of the…

10/23/2026 Click Above to Watch the Morning Market Talk Video Wheat In Extended Daily, Weekly Losing Strings On the Grains: Corn, soybeans and wheat traded narrowly around unchanged in rather directionless overnight price action. Corn and beans snapped their recent daily string of losses earlier this week – corn on Wednesday and soybeans on Thursday. Wheat is still trying to accomplish that feat. On a weekly basis, SRW wheat will finish lower for an eight straight week – the longest string for the most actively traded contract since 1997. Barring big rallies today, corn is poised for its fourth straight weekly decline and soybeans will end lower for a second straight week. USDA announced another 202,000 MT of new-crop soybean sales to China on Thursday, with the six-day total increasing to 1.950 MMT. More will be coming as China’s state-owned firms booked more cargoes on Thursday, as they are using the break to the lowest prices since late August to push toward finalizing the 25 MMT purchase commitment for 2026-27. Accounting for China’s export commitments through Oct. 15, sales to unknown destinations (much of which are to China) and the barrage of buying over the past week-plus, Beijing has purchased…

The Commstock Report is a twice daily market report. 10/22/2026 Becoming a Snowbird One Way or the Other PLEASE REFER TO THE BROKER COMMENTARY PAGE FOR UPDATES!! Click Above to Watch Brian's Afternoon Market Update The average age of a corn-belt farmer is something close to 58 years old and after a few decades of farm-work, scooping snow and sliding around on the ice, finding a warmer place to at least take a break from the winter becomes appealing. I get phone calls from farmer-friends in Cabo, Phoenix, Brownsville, Fort Lauderdale…all warmer places than Iowa in January and February. So many farmers go south in the winter that they coined the term, calling them "snowbirds". Some buy campers/motor homes so can go anywhere on wheels. Some motor homes cost as much as a nice house. Others rent or buy condos or second homes in AZ or FL. Others buy trailer-homes on site. One family said they bought 5 trailers in a park in TX and rent out 4 of them using the fifth. They said they make money from the investment. Motor homes provide mobility. There are many parks that cater to snowbirds with monthly or extended stay rental rates that come…

10/22/2026 Click Above to Watch the Morning Market Talk Video Grains Pause Awaiting Strong Demand Signal On the Grains: Corn and soybeans are mildly firmer early this morning, as markets are pausing following their recent sharp losses. Wheat futures struggled to find buyers overnight. Corn snapped its six-day string of declines on Wednesday. Soybeans and wheat are still trying to halt their string of price losses. Traders will look to export demand to signal prices have fallen far enough to attract strong global end-user buying. Until there’s a strong demand signal and/or some other reason that dries up fund selling, any strength will be purely corrective in nature. USDA reported another 114,000 MT of daily new-crop soybean sales to China on Wednesday, pushing the five-day total to nearly 1.75 MMT. USDA also announced daily soybean sales of 165,000 MT to Spain, which is more important, as it signals value buying by someone other than China. The market assumes China will buy its 25 MMT of soybeans and then be done. That means any export demand boost must come from other sources. Traders also want to see value buying show up for corn. There have only been two daily corn sales…

The Commstock Report is a twice daily market report. 10/21/2026 War Fighters with IRAN are Preparing for the Next Escalation PLEASE REFER TO THE BROKER COMMENTARY PAGE FOR UPDATES!! Click Above to Watch Brian's Afternoon Market Update A Pew Research poll this month found that 33% of Americans favored the way that President Trump has handled the war with Iran. That is the core base of his support that nothing he does will ever alienate them. It has never bothered me to me in a minority of opinion but I am not with that one. The only thing good that you could say about his handling of the war thus far was that he did resist impulses that could have led to even worse decisions and outcomes. I think that statement was being generous. This conflict is a very long way from any lasting resolution and there is plenty of opportunity for more mistakes.  He does have an unprecedented level of arrogant hubris to him that carries a risk that puts us all in danger. It is amazing, with all the serious issues impactful to all of us, how much time he instead spends working on vanity projects. Diesel fuel prices are…

The Commstock Report is a twice daily market report. 10/20/2026 My Humble Thoughts on Selling Beans Off the Combine. PLEASE REFER TO THE BROKER COMMENTARY PAGE FOR UPDATES!! Click Above to Watch Brian's Afternoon Market Update The market continues to search for a reason to find a bottom. We have broken the previous weekly low in December corn, signaling potential for another sharp drop. Next support levels are at $4.5725. The fundamentals are not so bearish as the fact that managed money is tipping the scales as they continue to slowly drip out of their long positions. The trade has been so "bulled" up for it may take a while for this to run its course. One customer described Iowa yields best: "We had a record soybean yield by a wide margin. Others in our area have been experiencing the same." This was from SE Iowa. I can confirm it is similar in NW Iowa. We always want to be careful and not extrapolate our yield situation to everywhere else. There are always going to be areas that do not perform as well. But we continue to believe that soybean yield estimates can still be adjusted higher. Harvest pressure will continue the…

10/20/2026 Click Above to Watch the Morning Market Talk Video Money Flow Will Determine When Lows Are In On the Grains: Mild corrective buying surfaced in corn, soybeans and wheat overnight as markets took a breather from the recent heavy price pressure. Unless funds return as active buyers, however, the upside is limited to corrective buying as corn and soybeans face ongoing seasonal pressure with harvest picking up steam and traders are uninspired by export demand. Money flow remains the most powerful price influence, so fund activity during daytime trade when they are far more active will indicate if the overnight strength turns into anything more than a modest correction. Over the past week, USDA has confirmed daily soybean sales of 1.472 MMT to China and another 780,450 MT to unknown destinations. Additional daily soybean sales are likely as China continued to shop for U.S. soybeans, though traders have repeatedly brushed that news aside, assuming Beijing will get to its 25 MMT commitment for 2026-27. Traders deem corn export demand as disappointing, with export commitments running 33% behind year-ago. However, that’s a short-sighted comparison since there were no soybeans flowing to China at this time last year and there were…

The Commstock Report is a twice daily market report. 10/19/2026 Agronomically… The Year is Going Pretty Much as Expected PLEASE REFER TO THE BROKER COMMENTARY PAGE FOR UPDATES!! Click Above to Watch Brian's Afternoon Market Update We entered this growing season here in NW IA with a full profile of subsoil moisture and got both our corn and soybeans planted early…our soybeans on the earliest date ever. I have noted that given those two criteria, of moisture reserves and timely planting date being favorably met, that crops then are tough to kill in the subsequent growing season. There was also a building El Nino to consider impacting this growing season. This is typically a positive thing, with El Nino years typically cooler and wetter in the corn-belt. The El Nino took its time to develop and I voiced concern over the delay about the possibility of a cold wet fall. Coming home from DesMoines recently I noted that there was water standing in the field near Boxholm in central Iowa. Bet basements there flooded. I feared mudding the crop out and tearing up fields. I was concerned that the ground may have to freeze before they could finish getting the crop out…

10/19/2026 Click Above to Watch the Morning Market Talk Video Funds Need Reason to Flip Buy Switch Back On On the Grains Wheat markets firmed a little overnight, while corn and soybeans pivoted around unchanged in quiet trade. Fresh market-moving news remains limited, technical trade and money flow will be key during daytime trade to open the week. Traders brushed aside last week’s aggressive Chinese soybean purchases as harvest pressure, technical selling and money flow dominated price action. Key for the new week is whether funds remain in liquidation mode or return as buyers. They likely need a fundamental reason to flip on the buy switch. As of Oct. 13, funds liquidated more length across the grain and soy markets, reducing their net long position to 783,174 futures contracts and 757,717 futures and options positions. Two noteworthy developments. 1) The futures and options position was smaller than the futures only position. 2) The corn long position was smaller than soybeans for the reporting period. Of note: The reporting period didn’t include the final three days last week during which November soybeans fell 22 1/2 cents and December corn dropped 8 cents. Geopolitically, Russia and Ukraine continue to attack each other…

Grains face early selling pressure from hedgers getting covered after a busy harvest weekend. Guidance comes from the energy trade after that. In the Headlines Down 30 cents for the week, soybean futures shrugged off Chinese buying listed to total nearly 1.5 million metric tons. While significant, the purchases were likely only a fraction of the amount of soybeans sold by farmers across the scale last week. Down just a nickel last week, corn futures faced harvest pressure but relatively less in the form of farmer selling as producers delivered against previous contracts and opted to sell soybeans/store corn. President Trump on Friday issued an executive order waiving the sanctions against Russia that were passed in the Graham Act with bipartisan support. The move was Trump's latest in an effort to tame surging fuel prices. Utilizing more than 1,000 drones, Ukraine attacked a Russian oil terminal in St. Petersburg on Sunday in the latest targeting of energy infrastructure following claims of Russia striking Ukraine's oil and gas assets. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has spoken out against what he claimed were 76 instances of Russian assaults on energy infrastructure in the week since President Trump announced that Russia and Ukraine had…