Good afternoon. Corn and soybeans traded lower on Tuesday while the wheat market was slightly higher in what was a somewhat uneventful day on the news front. Disappointing stimulus announcements from China following their Golden Week holiday last week was the main headline news piece through the day, with most citing this as the reason for the overall selling in the commodity space throughout the day today. A quicker than expected soybean harvest pace yesterday, as well as the arrival of rains in Argentina, also likely contributed to the selling.

CZ closed at 4.20 3/4, down 5 1/4. CH was down 4 1/2 cents at 4.38 1/4. SX closed at 10.16 1/4, down 17 3/4. SF was down 18 cents at 10.34 1/2. All four contracts had outside days lower. WZ closed at 5.94 3/4, up 2 1/4. Products were lower, December soybean meal closed at 323.0, down $1.0/ton, and December soybean oil closed at 43.09, down 1.48. Outside day lower for bean oil and the fifth consecutive lower close for Dec meal. Livestock markets were higher, December live cattle closed at 187.87, up 85 cents, November feeders closed at 250.30, up $1.15, and December hogs closed at 77.17, up 35 cents. New highs for the move for all three, and an outside day higher for feeders. Outside markets are mixed, crude oil futures are down $3.30-3.40/bbl, the Dow Jones index is up 150 points, and the US$ index is unchanged. The S&P500 is up 50 points and the NASDAQ is up 300 points. Outside day lower for crude, but prices are roughly a dollar/bbl off the lows as of this writing.

Spreads again finished the day mixed, corn spreads were a half cent lower to 3 cents lower, and soybean spreads were 3 cents lower to a penny higher. CZ/CH closed at -17 1/2, down 3/4 of a cent, and SX/SF closed at -18 1/4, up 1/4 of a cent. New high for the move in CZ/CH at -16 1/4 before having an outside day lower. ZW/ZH also made new contract lows at -24 1/4, and closed at -23 1/2.

USDA this morning announced daily sales of 166,000 mt's of soybeans for delivery to China during the 2024/25 marketing year. This marks the second consecutive day of flash sales to start the week.

Census export data released this morning for the month of August showed US corn exports at 203 mil bu's, compared to the USDA's inspection estimate of 163.2 mil bu's. For soybeans, census exports were seen at 63 mil bu's compared to the USDA's inspection estimate of 61.7 mil bu's. And for wheat, census data showed August exports at 89.6 mil bu's, compared to the USDA's inspection estimate of 80.7 mil bu's. Note the August USDA data is as of August 29th, which excludes the last two days of the month. Census sees cumulative exports for the 2023/24 marketing year that ended August 31st at 2.293 bil bu's of corn and 1.699 bil bu's of soybeans, which are both above the USDA's estimates.

Crude oil futures, as mentioned earlier, had an outside day lower on Tuesday and gave back a portion of the gains seen over the last week due to disappointing additional stimulus announcements from the Chinese government. In a briefing on Tuesday coming out of the week-long holiday last week, officials announced additional measures that were described as 'underwhelming' compared to what analysts had expected ahead of time. Oil prices had added premium of late due to increasing tensions between Israel and Iran/Iran's proxies, but until things escalate beyond the tit-for-tat missile lobbing that has been going on, the market seems to be taking a bit of a pause. Chinese demand still plays a large part in both policy (in terms of OPEC) and price discovery, regardless of what is going on in the Middle East.

Hurricane Milton continues to barrel towards Florida's southwest coast as a strong category 4 storm, with meteorologists expecting the storm to weaken slightly as it gets closer to landfall Wednesday night/Thursday morning, possibly hitting as a category 3. Models continue to see the track going generally towards Tampa Bay, but confidence as it pertains to this will grow over the next 24 hours. Winds are expected to be near 125mph at the time of landfall, while the models see anywhere from 6-10" of rainfall possible where the storm goes across Florida. By Thursday afternoon forecasters expect the storm to be back in the Atlantic on the East Coast side.

Other mid-day weather updates include a slightly drier outlook in the northern part of the US than what was seen overnight into the end of next week, but otherwise were again minimal. Dry conditions hold for most the country besides Florida and also the northeast for at least another two weeks, while temps will stay well above average in the west while fluctuating a bit more in the east; there are rising concerns about frost in the eastern Corn Belt beyond a week from now but confidence is not great. This will be watched for the rest of this week and going into the weekend.

In South America, the GFS mid-day run sees up to 8" of rainfall in parts of southern Brazil over the next week, with a more general 1-3" estimated for areas further to the north and west; this will cause flooding issues in some localized areas in the south. All indications continue to point the arrival of the monsoon season in South America, which as we've mentioned, bodes favorably for a rapid advancement in soy planting progress over the coming weeks. Temperatures will continue to be above average in most all of Brazil but the far south over the next week, while Argentina will be above average in the south/southeast and below average in the north/northwest.