A Single Tweet, a Major Jolt: Beans Steal the Show

This morning’s quiet trade erupted into huge bean gains when President Trump tweeted on Truth Social that his phone call with Chinese President Xi resulted in another trade breakthrough for China to potentially purchase another 290 MBU of old crop beans and return to their pre-Covid annual purchases of 915 MBU for new crop and beyond. Corn and wheat were not part of the trade deal and did not rally with beans and finished mixed to lower. Between Washington’s bullish guidance on 45Z  on Tuesday and today’s surprise long-term demand explosion, the landscape for the US bean market has changed significantly in the last 48-hours in a very unexpected and bullish direction. As more details emerge, every analyst and trader will adjust projections for supply and demand and prices, but the last 2-days have potentially been the most impactful for beans that did not involve weather in decades.

News and Notes:

• SA weather took a back seat to the other news today, but rain is falling int eh drier areas of Argentina with more expected in the next week. The US warms back up to normal seasonal temperatures for the next 2-weeks allowing frozen waterways, ice, and snow to melt.
• The March daily bean chart is on Page 2 and highlights today’s major breakout with the daily price range trading through all four major moving averages with a close over all four for the first time since Dec 1^st. Technically, there is plenty of upside room, but farmer selling capped today’s unexpected rally and will continue, especially if November beans trade too far over $11 again.
• Despite today’s wild flurry in every sector, there was little news other than some concern about overvalued technology/AI stocks, and apparent progress in moving toward an end of the Russian/Ukraine war. Today’s ridiculous volatility reminds us that computer driven trading models are programmed to trade momentum, which only magnifies big news and often overdoes the moves. This highlights the reason why you have standing orders in with your buyers. If you had an $11.10 standing order in for an HTA on March beans, the markets only traded above that level for less than 3-minutes of a 4 hour and 40-minute trading session. To further fine tune my point, the daily close was 18-cents lower than your intended sales price. There is no way you could have heard the news, reacted quickly enough to get that same order executed by calling it in. Please know that volatility will only increase during this administration, and preparation and a well-executed plan are your only weapons.

I can safely say today was the most volatile day for all the major markets that has ever happened in my 35-year career. The Trump/China bean announcement is just a small piece of the wild daily ranges as crude (4%), NASDAQ (3%), silver (11%), bitcoin (7%), beans (4%) were just a few of the highlights. If you had owned just one full-sized contract for each of those 5, your dollar value intraday equity swing would have been about $71,000! President Trump’s announcement at 938 this morning was the spark the bulls had been hoping for as China’s pledges will significantly cut the USDA expectations for 25/26 and 26/27 ending stocks and immediately change planted acreage thoughts this spring. Unfortunately, corn did not participate in the bean rally and today’s chance to hedge $11 November bean futures against $4.56 December corn futures, makes beans currently more attractive in the US than high cost per acre corn. The banks and Mother Nature will determine if today’s rally moved additional 2026 US acres to beans.