Good afternoon. Trump's Liberation Day announcements hit markets with a bang on Thursday, as most of the commodity space spent the day trading in the red. Aside from bonds, which were unsurprisingly by-far the largest upside mover today, the grain markets actually did the next best, as corn and wheat were both able to trade 10+ cents off their lows by mid-morning and were in the green on and off before finishing the day slightly lower.

CK closed Thursday at 4.57 and 1/2, down a quarter of a cent; CN was up a quarter cent at 4.65 and 1/2. Each had outside days higher. SK closed at 10.11 and 1/2, down 18 cents. SN was down 18 and 3/4 at 10.26 and 1/4. Each have open chart gaps above today's highs of about 4-5 cents. WK closed at 5.36, down 3 and 1/4. Products were mixed, May soybean meal closed at 288.0, up 80 cents/ton, and May soybean oil closed at 47.06, down 1.44 cents/lb. New contract lows for May meal this morning at 283.50. Livestock markets finished the day lower, April live cattle closed at 208.05, down $2.32, April feeders closed at 285.40, down $3.47, and April hogs closed at 87.37, down 7 cents. April hogs had an outside day while both cattle markets had gap-lower opens. Outside markets have spent most of the day sharply lower; crude oil futures are down $4.80-5.00/bbl and around a dollar off their lows, the Dow Jones index is down 1,700 points, and the US$ index is down 170 points and some 80 points off its lows. All five of those markets had gap-lower opens last night, with crude oil's, the Dow's, and the S&P's all still open on the charts. Gold futures were down $40/oz.

Spreads were mixed, corn spreads finished the day down 3/4 of a cent to up 2 cents, while soybean spreads were down 10 cents on the back end to up 2 and 1/4. CK/CN closed at -8, down a half cent, and SK/SN closed at -14 and 3/4, up 3/4 of a cent. CU/CZ closed a half cent lower at -8 and 1/2 and made a new contract low at -9. SX/SF also made a new contract low on Thursday at -13.

All things considered, the day could've been much worse for grain markets in Chicago as the fact that Canada and Mexico were not included in Trump's new round of trade tariffs was seen as a large relief by a lot of traders and analysts. In his announcement yesterday, President Trump said that existing tariffs on Canada and Mexico of 25% due to what he called failures to stop the flow of drugs and migrants coming into the US would remain in effect, but added that any goods under the current USMCA agreement would not be subject to any additional tariffs at this time. The two countries have still been working to find alternatives though, as Mexico's President today said that her country would sign and adhere to a new trade agreement with the EU, while Canada's Prime Minister similarly said that his country would be exploring new trade relations with Germany. Prime Minister Carney also announced today that Canada would implement a 25% tariff on all US car imports that are not covered under the USMCA deal. Otherwise, what happens from here is anybody's guess; Trump has made clear that the he is open for negotiations and is simply looking for reciprocity when it comes to trade duties, but whether his implementation of new measures brings US trade partners to the negotiating table is yet to be seen.

Other new news was mostly limited to weekly export sales on Thursday, as the tariff talk dominated most newswires and headlines. Export data for the week ending March 27th showed corn sales for the week at 1.173 mmt's, with featured buyers being Korea (339,400 mt's), Mexico (226,500 mt's), Japan (168,500 mt's), and Taiwan (165,300 mt's); unknown destinations were buyers of 115,600 mt's. Soybean sales for the week totaled 410k mt's, with the featured buyer being China (285,900 mt's); unknown destinations assigned out/rolled/canceled 179,500 mt's in the week. And for wheat, sales for the week totaled 340k mt's, with Ecuador being the featured buyer at 71,900 mt's. Of note, this was a new three-week high for sales in both beans and wheat, while meal sales unexpectedly disappointed at just 94k tons; this was the smallest weekly meal export sales figure of the marketing year by nearly 50k mt's.

Weather forecasts for the US, though active, have remained largely unchanged again on Thursday, which has been the case pretty much all week. Following continued heavy rainfall in southeast/mid-south the rest of this week and into this weekend, models continue to be in good agreement on a shift to a drier pattern for most all of the country beginning Sunday/Monday and lasting through next week. The GFS is trying to bring in a small clipper to the Midwest next Wednesday, but the EU model does not have this system, which will need monitoring. Temperatures in the west will begin starting to gradually warm over the coming weekend, and look to continue doing so through next week before being seen well above average in the 5-10 day period. Further out, models see warmer temps returning to the east as well, as nearly all of the US besides the far northwest expects to see temps that are well above average for mid-April between the 13th and the 18th.

Argentina's weather will remain mostly dry over the next week or so, but models continue to show rain returning to the eastern and southeastern parts of the country into mid-month. In Brazil, concern is building over a lack of forecasted precip for areas in the south-central, but rain is expected to return to northern growing areas over the next couple weeks. Temperatures have continued trending cooler throughout most of Brazil, with the week-one temperature anomaly forecast now showing just pockets of warmer weather through the central part of the country, with any real heat seen mostly north of the main growing areas. Argentina looks to stay cooler than average throughout most all of the country, which is helping to limit any type of late-season crop stress. Remember, last year at this time production cuts were being made almost daily due to the presence of a leafhopper insect that was wreaking havoc on corn yields; that there has been pretty much radio silence through nearly the first quarter of harvest this year would lead us to believe yields here are at least decent.