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Perspective: Mid-Day Commentary for July 31

By: Mike Castle, Market Intelligence - Fertilizer Analyst

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July 31 – Tomorrow is the deadline for fresh tariffs to be introduced on the countries who have not yet reached a trade agreement with the U.S., meaning the market will be keeping an eye out for additional last-minute announcements following the deal struck with key trading partner and Pacific ally South Korea. India is top of mind after yesterday’s threat of 25% tariffs and unspecified punitive measures for their continued heavy imports of Russian crude oil, though President Trump did note that the two sides are still negotiating, leaving open the possibility of a more favorable outcome before tomorrow’s deadline. Canada is facing a potentially even higher tariff rate of 35% if no agreement can be reached, though it is worth noting that goods covered by the USMCA should remain exempt barring a very unexpected change in course. 

This probably sounds like a broken record at this point, but the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have both reached fresh all-time highs yet again this morning after earnings beats from tech giants Meta and Microsoft prompted both stocks to gap higher, up 11.6% and 4.5% at the time of writing, respectively. The VIX is up slightly on the day but remains relatively muted compared to historical levels as it hovers around the 15.6 level. The dollar has had an incredible strong week, pushing to fresh two-month highs earlier in the session before losing steam and trading narrowly in the red at mid-day near the 99.8 level. Treasuries are mixed, with 10-year yields in the green near 4.37% and 2-year yields in the red around 3.92%. Crude oil is reversing course from its sharp gains in the previous three days this week, with nearby WTI trading back below $68.80 at the time of writing. The ags are narrowly mixed for the most part, with front-end corn trying to join KC wheat in the green while most of the remaining grains fall but hogs and cotton push higher. 

The Chicago Business Barometer saw its largest monthly increase in over a year in July, rising 6.7 points month-on-month to reach 47.1, well above market expectations of a modest rise to 42.0 and marking the strongest reading for the index since March. The jump was primarily driven by a sharp rise in new orders (+14.6 points month-on-month) to reach its highest level since May 2022, though the employment and production portions did see slight declines. We also saw good news on the inflation front, with the Prices Paid subindex unexpectedly dropping a sharp 8.3 points month-on-month. 

Weekly new crop (25/’26) corn sales hit a new high for the year at 74.5 million bushels in the week ending July 24th, bringing cumulative ‘25/’26 to roughly 339 million bushels and marking the strongest pace at this time since 2021. Unknown destinations accounted for the largest chunk at 25.9 million bushels, with South Korea following at 18.4 million, Mexico at 15.3 million, and Japan at 10.7 million. The big difference in the strength of new crop corn sales from this year compared to four years ago was the vast majority of that strength were sales to a single destination—China. This time around, we have zero bushels of corn sold to China (that we know of). However, sales to our traditional top destinations of Mexico, Colombia, Japan, and South Korea are all at their hottest pace in years, if not ever. Old crop (‘24/’25) corn sales were less impressive at 13.4 million bushels, but cumulative sales remain comfortably ahead of the pace needed to blow past USDA’s current 2.75-billion-bushel export target, leaving open the potential for additional upward revisions in the months ahead. 

Old crop soybean sales of 12.8 million bushels came in above the top-end trade estimate, keeping us on track to beat USDA’s 1.865-billion-bushel export target barring any major cancellations in the weeks ahead. New crop sales came in at 15.8 million bushels, split primarily between Mexico and unknown destinations. Unlike the corn side, current ‘25/’26 soybean sales are quite weak at this point, trailing last year’s pace by 14.6% with the lack of Chinese demand having a much bigger impact on sales totals given China’s traditional outsized market share of U.S. soybean exports. All wheat sales were solid at 21.8 million bushels, coming in toward the high-end of analyst estimates, with unknown destinations accounting for the largest chunk there. We also saw 1.4 million bushels of ‘26/’27 wheat sold to unknown destinations. 

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