Great South American Weather and Lack of Chinese Bean Purchases Leads Markets Lower

The new month took the trade back to looking at the same old obstacles in the soy and grain markets as a lack of a daily Chinese beans purchase and near-perfect weather in South America were the main factors after last week’s seasonal Thanksgiving rallies ran into technical resistance. The bulls need to find additional supportive news in any of those three major factors to sustain gains and subsequently add to them, but for early December they will have to rely on China following through on their late October trade promises. With Thanksgiving falling late again this year, the traders and market participants will have a fast run into Christmas and the end of the year which will increase the probability of following the markets’ trend to pad their year-end bonuses.

News and Notes:

• Record snowfall over the Thanksgiving weekend for most of the western and central Corn Belt was an unwanted problem for the cattlemen and anyone travelling for the holiday. Meanwhile, most of Argentina and Brazil are receiving rain, sun, and a lack of extreme heat to advance crop growth into the key mid-December pollination dates. For any serious crop stress or yield loss, the window will only be open for another 3-4 weeks and then early harvest will likely confirm the bulls concerns of record yields again for both Brazil and Argentina.
• The daily November ’26 bean chart is on Page 2 and shows today’s early rally to the upper end of the November rally before failing at technical resistance with both farmer hedging and fund selling a feature of the volume. The technical picture argues for a range-bound trade for the next week or so, but the fundamental picture is pointing to a potential breakdown into mid-December. New crop sales need to be advanced because a record SA bean crop of 8+ BBU could drive prices into the low $10 area by late winter. With the funds long over 600 MBU, a selloff to protect profits and bonuses into the year-end would be a heavy load for the bulls to offset.
• The commodity and equity markets opened modestly higher on Sunday night before the latest Chinese manufacturing data came in well below expectations to start the sell-off that continued through the day. Without a strong Chinese economy there is little upside in potential Chinese US ag imports and if the tariffs are reapplied because of non-compliance, the Chinese economy could get worse before it gets any better. China and Chairman Xi are in a tough spot currently.
• USDA Secretary Rollins announced over the weekend that the USDA will be working on the framework for the government payments to the farm community during the loss of income during the tariff wars. Speculation remains in the private sector that the program will look like the 2029 trade war relief package with payments of $10-$14 billion to affected operations. It looks less likely that the checks will arrive before the end of the year.

There is a point in every bear market rally that you engage in a game of chicken when setting sales targets and making sales. Everyone wants to get as close to highs as possible in narrow or non-existent) margin years, but fear or missing an unexpected winter rally and greed of not the personality traits you want making your marketing decisions into 2026. While late winter (right before planting starts) is the historical time to sell, the new seasonals point more toward holiday selling if there is no weather problem in South America. I have lowered the 2026 bean and wheat and both 2025 and 2026 corn sales targets because missing a few cents is not worth missing sales that are later made at much lower prices.