first look 1/16
Grain markets are closed Sunday night and Monday day for MLK day. Markets will be open Monday night.
Canada’s prime minister said in Beijing that Canada expects progress on resolving long-standing trade obstacles across key agricultural sectors, from beef to pet food, framing the talks as an effort to normalize access and reduce friction. However, the context matters: both Canada and China run large trade surpluses with the United States, making the optics less about liberalization and more about leverage. From a U.S. perspective, the dynamic resembles a “two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner” scenario — a deal driven more by strategic alignment and spite toward U.S. trade pressure than by balanced, market-driven reform, with potential implications for U.S. agricultural exporters caught outside the room.
Recent Federal Reserve commentary collectively signals a strong bias toward holding policy steady and keeping monetary conditions modestly restrictive, with inflation still viewed as the dominant concern. Several officials said there is little justification for rate cuts, warning that easing too soon could reignite inflation without materially improving employment, while noting that rates are currently well positioned to balance labor-market and inflation risks. Growth expectations remain solid, with multiple policymakers pointing to AI investment and consumer spending as key drivers, and GDP seen growing around or above 2% in 2026. Labor markets are described as stable but cautious, characterized by low hiring and low firing, reflecting ongoing business uncertainty. Tariffs continue to be cited as a source of lingering inflation pressure, reinforcing the Fed’s shared emphasis on maintaining restrictiveness until inflation is clearly on track back to the 2% target.
Mexico’s Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Mexico is already reviewing the USMCA and that the process must be completed by July 1, underscoring the accelerating timeline ahead of the agreement’s formal 2026 review and raising the importance of near-term trade positioning between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the United States and Honduras intend to launch negotiations on a bilateral agreement focused on reciprocal trade as soon as possible. The comment signals early-stage talks aimed at improving balance and symmetry in market access and tariffs rather than pursuing a broad free-trade agreement. It also fits into the administration’s wider strategy of pursuing country-by-country, reciprocity-based trade deals, with potential implications for agricultural and manufacturing trade flows.
China is moving to curb high-frequency trading by removing collocated servers from exchange-run data centers and adding intentional latency to external connections, a regulator-driven effort to strip speed advantages from ultra-fast trading firms. The change will most directly affect global firms that rely on low-latency execution and is expected to reduce arbitrage activity, widen bid-ask spreads, and slow price discovery in Chinese futures markets. While the move is not a ban on foreign participation, it signals a clear policy preference for market stability and control over maximum liquidity and efficiency. As a result, global traders are likely to place less weight on Chinese futures prices as real-time signals, increasingly treating them as policy-managed references rather than leading indicators for global commodity pricing.
| Outside Markets | Price | Change | % Change | |
| Dow | 49,689 | 50.00 | 0.10 | |
| Crude | 59.95 | 0.76 | 1.28 | |
| US Dollar | 99.0550 | (0.067) | -0.07 | |
| Gold | 4,599.57 | (16.580) | -0.36 | |
| US 2/10 Swap | 60.4650 | 0.3550 | - | |
| VIX | 15.53 | (0.31) | - | |
| | | | | |
| CBOT Ags Volume & Open Interest | | | |
| | Previous Volume | Change in OI | Options Volume | Change in Options OI |
| Corn | 350,954 | 14,050 | 86,996 | 23,254 |
| SRW | 90,074 | (349) | 10,502 | 1,261 |
| HRW | 59,662 | 1,299 | - | 2,148 |
| Soybeans | 280,668 | 3,056 | 60,835 | 5,084 |
| Meal | 178,251 | 6,413 | 25,283 | 4,708 |
| Oil | 404,701 | 10,250 | 86,215 | 6,418 |
| Feeders | 18,830 | 1,338 | 8,177 | 828 |
| Live Cattle | 62,428 | 1,560 | 9,304 | 1,032 |
| Hogs | 93,414 | 7,146 | 40,649 | (13,771) |
| | | | | |
Overnight options activity
Corn
B 500 g 425 c 1 3/4
S 750 g 420 p 2 5/8 vs 420 3/4
S 100 j 470 c 1 1/2
S 200 j 445 c 4 5/8 vs 428 1/2
Beans
S 4000 k 1070 p 30 1/8 to 29
S 3000 h 1060 p 20 1/8 to 19
S 100 k 1040 p 14 3/4
B 275 k 1070 c 23 ¼ vs 1064
S 300 h 1100 c 3 1/8 to 2 7/8
S 200 h 1070 c 10 ½ to 10 3/8
Bean oil
S 350 h 56 c .900 to .835
B 100 h 54/57 cs .860
B 300 h 49 p .310 to .360
S 400 g 5350 c .550
B 400 h 55 c 1.050 to 1.100
S 200 h 5250 c 2.00
B 100 h 50 p .530
Wheat
B 100 k 490 p 9 1/2
Open interest changes
Corn
March 430/440/450 call fly buy and march 430/440 call spread buys were new....march 450 call sale and feb 443 put sales were closing
Beans
Feb 1040 put buy, nov 1100 call sale, nov 1200 call buy and short dated april 1070 call sales were new....march 1050/1020 put spread sale and feb 1060 put sales were closing
Soymeal
Feb 300 call buy, march 290 put buy and march 315 call sales were closing ....feb 290 call sale, march 300 call buy and march 280 put buys were new.
Bean oil
March 56 call buy and may 55 call buys were new....march 52 call sale, march 55 call sale and march 60 call buys were closing
Wheat
March 500 put buy was closing
Kc wheat
Feb 525 straddle buys were new
Lean hogs
April 100 call buy was closing ...feb 82/74 put spread buy was new
Feeder cattle
March 320/290 put spread sale was closing
Cvol
Ags 17.07% down .18% (1 month low)
Corn 14.97% down .04%
Beans 13.65% up .09%
Soymeal 18.44% up .09%
Bean oil 27.57% down .11%
Wheat 20.92% up .20%
Feeder cattle 18.56% down .40%
Live cattle 15.76% down .53% (1 month low)
Lean hogs 21.22% down .92%
Class 3 milk 15.75% up .34%
Corn
Beans
Soymeal
Bean oil
Wheat
Kc wheat
Miax wheat
Oats
Rough rice
Crush
Feeder cattle
Live cattle
Lean hogs
sources
news bloomberg
options data globex
charts bloomberg
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