It was a holiday-shortened week. US markets closed Friday for the June 19th holiday, so the tape only ran Monday through Thursday. The week-over-week moves were measured to Thursday’s close.
The story was the bounce. Grains had just come off one of the largest fund-liquidation stretches on record, and this week the complex clawed back from contract and multi-month lows. Soybeans set the tone, and China buying finally showed up.
Corn
Corn settled Thursday at 417.50 cents per bushel, up about 2 cents from Monday, after trading a roughly 16-cent range between 406.25 and 422.00 on the week. On paper, that was a quiet week. Underneath it was anything but.
Corn just logged the largest one-week liquidation event on record. Fund managers dumped more than 120,000 contracts in the week ending June 9, and close to 350,000 futures and options contracts from the peak net long carved in early May. Managed money flipped from net long roughly 115,000 contracts to net short about 5,000 in a single week.
The bounce came on spillover from the bean rally and short-covering. A 66,182-lot block of September $5.50/$6.00 call spreads traded Thursday, pushing corn call volume to its highest since May 2019. S&P Global Commodity Insights, meanwhile, raised its 2026 corn acreage estimate to 96 million acres, up 800,000 from its March read and above USDA’s 95.3-million-acre projection ahead of the June 30 acreage and stocks report. Pro Farmer’s Michael Cordonnier nudged his US corn yield up a bushel to 182.
So there is plenty of corn. But the short position is fresh and the growing season is young. As Charlie Sernatinger put it, the funds’ new shorts are “very new, and vulnerable.” In our view, that setup leaves corn exposed to a squeeze if weather turns or China keeps buying.
Soybeans
Front-month futures rallied Monday through Wednesday to a two-week high of 1140.50 cents, then gave some back Thursday to close at 1122.75, a net gain of about 3.5 cents on the week. The driver was demand, both the rumor of it and then the confirmation.
On Thursday the USDA confirmed a flash sale of 132,000 tons of soybeans to China and another 120,000 tons to unknown buyers, the first daily export sale to China in four months. The backdrop is the Trump-Xi agreement for China to buy 25 million metric tons of soybeans annually through 2028, and the market is watching follow-through closely.
Still, soybean oil fell sharply Thursday to its lowest since April 14, down roughly 16% since June 1, as the US-Iran peace deal knocked crude lower and dimmed biofuel demand appeal. That capped gains across the soy complex. Notably, crop conditions held firm at 66% good to excellent.
There is still a 10% import tax on US beans into China on top of the standard 3% duty, so the private buyers are paying the tax out of pocket and one flash sale is not a trend. But the positioning matters. It appears the selling has exhausted for now. We think the pace of Chinese follow-through is an important variable to watch from here.
Wheat: The Standout
Wheat was the best performer in the complex. Chicago front-month ran from $5.898 Monday to a Thursday close of $6.058, up about 2.7% on the week, touching a two-week high of $6.182 before traders pared risk into the long weekend.
USDA raised its winter wheat good-to-excellent rating to 27%, up two points and the first improvement in five weeks, though it remains the lowest reading for the week since 1989. Harvest was running fast: 25% of the winter crop was in the bin versus 11% a week earlier and well ahead of last year’s 9% pace. A harvest moving that quickly through diminished fields reinforced the thin-crop story.
The tape is turning. Sernatinger noted calendar spreads tightening and wheat gaining on corn since the start of the month, and read the week’s action as “some kind of bottom.” In our view, the winter-wheat condition floor and the fast harvest pace could keep a bid under the market if the export side firms up.
Sugar
ICE No. 11 raw sugar traded a narrow 13.56 to 14.00 cents per pound and ended Thursday at 13.59, essentially flat to slightly lower, after completing a six-session losing streak earlier in the week.
Crude was the culprit. The US-Iran interim peace deal and the resulting drop in oil prices weighed on sugar, because cheaper oil reduces the incentive for Brazilian mills to divert cane toward ethanol, which leaves more cane crushed for sugar. That near-term overhang sits against a tightening medium-term picture. Trader Czarnikow revised its 2026-27 global balance to a slight deficit of 0.1 million tons, down from a prior surplus estimate of 1.4 million, citing lower Brazilian Center-South production as mills favor ethanol.
Then there is weather. NOAA declared El Niño conditions on June 11 with a 62% to 63% probability of a very strong event through the October-to-January window. El Niño has historically pressured cane yields in India, Thailand, and Southeast Asia. In our view, the near-term tape is heavy, but the medium-term supply risk could firm up if the El Niño read holds.