Markets weighed ample global supplies, South American competition, and shifting Black Sea, Chinese, and MENA trade flows, leaving CBOT wheat, corn, and soybeans range-bound, largely event-driven, and capped by stocks.
Wheat
Wheat rallied but ample production squeezed prices lower
- U.S. balance sheet remained weighty. USDA’s recent Small Grains Summary and Grain Stocks still framed the market, with 2025 all-wheat production at 1.98 bn bushels and Sep-1 stocks at 2.12 bn bushels (+6% y/y). Private surveys suggest winter-wheat seeding is around 90% complete with just-above-average ratings.
- Export signals turned more supportive, but the market responded with a ‘sell-the-news’ reaction. With official sales data still delayed, traders focused on inspections running at their strongest pace in nearly a decade and estimates of 250–650 Kt weekly sales, plus China’s first U.S. wheat purchase in a year.
- Black Sea competition remained the dominant headwind. SovEcon again raised its 2025/26 Russian wheat export forecast to roughly 43.7–43.8 MMT and pegged October shipments near 5.1–5.4 MMT, well above the five-year average, with November potentially at a record-high.
- The global surplus narrative was reinforced by other exporters. EU wheat markets stayed subdued as analysts stressed “ample” European supply and looming southern-hemisphere harvest pressure, while ABARES lifted Australia’s 2025/26 wheat forecast to 33.8 MMT, about 10% above its June estimate and well above the 10-year average.
Corn
December contract moves mildly due to strengthened inventory
- Heavy Northern Hemisphere supply kept Dec ’25 corn range-bound. December 2025 CBOT corn traded essentially sideways, holding in roughly a $4.27–$4.36/bu band and oscillating around $4.30/bu, with only modest net change despite decent intraday ranges. That price resilience sits on top of USDA projections for a record-large 2025 U.S. crop of about 16.8 billion bushels and earlier cuts to U.S. ending stocks driven by strong export and feed demand, combined with FAO forecasts of record world cereal production and expanding maize inventories.
- South American crop prospects reinforced the expectation of intense export competition into 2026. Brazil entered the new marketing cycle with expectations for high corn output and exports, underpinned by decent early summer-crop planting progress, improving rains in the Center-South and South, and an already large export program that still needs heavy shipment pace into early 2026 to hit targets.
- Black Sea and Ukrainian flows added local risk premium but didn’t overturn the “well-supplied” story. Ukrainian grain exports in the 2025/26 season were running about 35% below the prior year by early November, with corn shipments only around one-third of last season’s volume, underlining that war-related logistics constraints and infrastructure risk continue to suppress flows even as an alternative sea corridor has already moved tens of millions of tons of grain.
- At the same time, Argentina’s corn was reported at roughly one-third planted with close to 80% of the emerged crop rated good to excellent, signaling – weather permitting – another sizeable South American contribution to 2026 global supply rather than a squeeze.
Soybeans
Soybeans soar on US-China agriculture deal, ex-US producers gain strength
- U.S.-China trade détente repriced demand risk, but with clear limits. In the last days of October and the first week of November, the market rallied on headlines that Beijing and Washington had agreed to resume large-scale U.S. soybean purchases, with China signaling at least 12 MMT of U.S. imports in the near term and a target of roughly 25 MMT per year going forward, mainly via state buyer COFCO.
- However, traders quickly focused on the fine print: a residual double-digit duty on U.S. imports and ongoing Section 301 leverage mean the truce is fragile, and China’s commitments largely normalize trade back toward historic norms rather than creating truly new demand.
- South American supply is fundamentally heavy, but early-season planting risks kept a weather premium in deferred months. Brazil’s official supply agency Conab continues to project a record 2025/26 soybean crop of around 177–178 MMT, supported by another year of record acreage, while FAO and other agencies are simultaneously flagging record-high global cereal and feed-grain stocks for 2025/26.
- China’s demand remains huge, but diversified sourcing and weak crusher margins constrained how much of that flows through U.S. futures. Fundamentally, China is still the dominant buyer, taking roughly 60% of globally traded soybeans in recent years, and before the trade war, it absorbed nearly a third of U.S. production in a typical marketing year. Yet by mid-2025, retaliatory tariffs and aggressive Brazilian expansion had shifted the center of gravity: Brazil has supplied about two-thirds of China’s soybean imports, and U.S. new-crop export sales to China for 2025/26 were effectively zero going into harvest.