The Commstock Report

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…

09/04/2026 Click Above to Watch the Morning Market Talk Video Markets Quiet for Now Ahead of Key Data, Holiday Weekend On the Grains Corn and soybean futures are trading modestly lower early this morning, while wheat has turned mostly firmer. Price action was two-sided and relatively calm overnight. Traders will comb news on the geopolitical front, weather and demand side as they prepare for the upcoming three-day holiday weekend. That could lead to increased volatility ahead of today’s closes.The broader marketplace will also be influenced by the August employment report, which will be another data point for the Fed to consider ahead of its monetary policy meeting later this month. Expectations center on roughly 53,000 non-farm payrolls added and a 4.1% unemployment rate. Outside markets are relatively quiet ahead of the potential market-moving data.On the geopolitical front, the Trump administration appears ready to restart high-level shuttle diplomacy between Moscow and Kyiv this weekend, raising expectations for a renewed push to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to travel to Russia and Ukraine Saturday and Sunday, according to Russia's TASS news agency. Meanwhile, attacks between the two countries continue and grain flows out…

09/03/2026 Click Above to Watch the Morning Market Talk Video Grains Remain Highly Sensitive to Headlines On the Grains Grain and soy markets faced heavy selling overnight and are showing signs of short-term exhaustion on the daily charts. Wheat markets led the overnight price plunge as Russian President Vladimir Putin said there is a “chance” at peace with Ukraine. This comes on the heels of Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan saying earlier this week he had a plan to resurrect grain shipments from the Black Sea. A near-term peace agreement is unlikely, but the overnight price action illustrates how sensitive the wheat market is to geopolitical headlines. Soybeans are being pressured in part by a disagreement between Chinese and U.S. officials at a Group of 20 finance chiefs meeting this week. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday publicly accused Chinese officials of preventing the group from issuing a joint communique. Chinese officials reportedly didn’t like the phrase “non-market” in a sentence addressing trade imbalances, indirectly referencing China’s subsidies for state-owned firms and its outsized exports. Importantly, the U.S. is joined by other key global trading partners in criticizing Beijing for its overreliance on exports for growth. There are rumblings that the planned meeting between President…

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…

09/02/2026 Click Above to Watch the Morning Market Talk Video Nothing Changed but Money Flow On the Grains After posting contract highs earlier in the overnight session, corn, soybeans and SRW wheat pulled back and are under pressure early this morning. Meal, soyoil, HRW and HRS wheat didn’t post new highs but they are also weaker. Chalk up the price pressure to profit-taking after recent strong gains and heavy wave of money flow into the long side of grain and soy markets. Nothing has changed fundamentally, so money flow will determine whether the overnight weakness is seen as a fresh buying opportunity or if the corrective pullback extends. A pullback that lets markets catch their breath is healthy. It would take a sharp shift in money flow to signal short-term tops are in place. Russia and Ukraine continued their barrage of attacks on each other overnight. Grain shipments out of the Black Sea region remain restricted, with no sign of meaningful relief anytime soon. The Ukrainian Agrarian Council (UAC), the country's largest farmers' organization, advised exporters and producers to construct trading strategies on the assumption that deep-water port operations will not resume before December or January. That would cut into Ukraine’s…

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…

09/01/2026 Click Above to Watch the Morning Market Talk Video New Recommendations Day 3:  Reco 1: Sell 10% of 2026 corn with March 2027 futures at $5.50. Filled on Aug. 31. Reco 2: Sell 15% of 2026 wheat with March 2027 Chicago wheat futures at $8.00. Reco 3: Sell 10% of 2027 wheat with December 2027 Chicago wheat futures at $8.00. Reco 4: Sell 10% of 2027 soybeans with November 2027 futures at $12.50. Filled on Aug. 31. *** Futures trading involves risk. The risk of loss in trading futures and/or options is substantial and each investor and/or trader must consider whether this is a suitable investment. Past performance is not indicative of future results. New Month, Money Still Flowing Long On the Grains: The flip of the calendar to September didn’t change anything in the grain and soy markets overnight, aside from corn not being the price leader. Instead, soybeans, soy oil and the winter wheat markets paced the overnight gains. Corn, soybeans and the winter wheat markets all posted contract highs. Soyoil futures filled the July 27 gap on the daily chart, with the EPA’s small refinery exemptions deemed better than feared (see “Other Ag Headlines and Hotlines” below for details…

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…

08/31/2026 New Recommendations Day 2:  Reco 1: Sell 10% of 2026 corn with March 2027 futures at $5.50. Reco 2: Sell 15% of 2026 wheat with March 2027 Chicago wheat futures at $8.00. Reco 3: Sell 10% of 2027 wheat with December 2027 Chicago wheat futures at $8.00. Reco 4: Sell 10% of 2027 soybeans with November 2027 futures at $12.50. *** Futures trading involves risk. The risk of loss in trading futures and/or options is substantial and each investor and/or trader must consider whether this is a suitable investment. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Click Above to Watch the Morning Market Talk Video Month-End Positioning, But Bulls Dominated August On the Grains: Corn and soybean futures traded on both sides of unchanged overnight, with corn trading near unchanged and soybeans under light pressure early this morning. Wheat futures are facing heavier corrective selling, especially in the winter wheat markets. Markets will continue to be influenced by money flow, with weather, geopolitics, biofuels policy and other factors influencing investor decisions, so volatility is likely to remain elevated. Biofuels policy: EPA is expected today to announce its decision on small refinery exemptions for the 2025 compliance year. Two things to consider.…