03/20/26 Afternoon CommStock Report – Countdown to Report Day

Spring is the season for weather markets to develop as winter crops come out of dormancy and summer crops get planted. There will still be ample attention on weather’s influences on markets this year, with 75 percent of the country currently rated abnormally dry or worse, but also with some hope of the outgoing La Nina stirring up an active weather transition ahead. In any case, weather may be put on the back burner along with the other so-called ‘core’ fundamentals of the grain space, at least as long as it stays a war market over everything. War-related volatility remains the major caveat for conducting fundamental analysis that is otherwise still necessary as the shift into spring brings new inputs like the upcoming stocks and acres reports.   The grain futures spreads are worth monitoring for implications about the availability of old-crop stocks and about prospects for the next crop. Along with basis softening, corn spreads have widened over the last two months so that the market incentivized carry over the need for additional spot sales on top of the recent wave of heavy farmer selling. Estimations of the corn carry incentives include the May/July futures spread reaching up to…