DeLong Commentary

MARKETS ARE CLOSED MONDAY 5/25

Headlines:

USDA Flash Sales

The USDA announced solid daily flash sales Friday morning. Mexico booked 493,700 metric tons of corn split across marketing years, an unknown destination added 110,000 metric tons of corn, and 252,000 metric tons of soybean meal was sold to unknown as well. Physical demand remains intact heading into the long weekend.

Weather Turning Drier

The forecast is shifting. The 6 to 15-day outlook is trending drier across the Northern Midwest and Northern Plains. Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Missouri are all expected to see limited rainfall over the next week. South Dakota and Nebraska, which missed recent rains, are actually the wetter spots in the near-term forecast.

Hard Truth on Fertilizer

The Senate Ag Committee held a hearing this week on fertilizer supply chain costs, and the message was clear — this isn’t an Iran story, it’s a structural one. USDA forecasts record production expenses of $478 billion in 2026, and that number was set before the recent fuel and fertilizer surge tied to the Hormuz closure. South Dakota Corn Growers told the committee that market concentration in the fertilizer sector has allowed dominant companies to extract profits from farmers rather than pass savings down. The Fertilizer Institute called for a dedicated USDA economist position to track global input markets transparently.

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