Welcome to the table for the.

Friday, June 19th, 2026 installment of the Market Plus.

Karen Braun is with us now.

Karen.

We started the main discussion about Iran.

The ink is barely dry on this deal.

What a better way to start than with Louise and Kansas's question, because it's kind of tying things up.

And it's one thing I didn't ask in the program.

If the Iran war is truly over, when can we expect some relief on fuel and fertilizer prices?

>> Well, the ink is not technically dry yet because we are waiting for a Friday signing, and that's only the initial stages of this thing.

So there's still going to be some discovery to go.

But assuming that we we have tied this thing up, you know, fertilizer prices have come down to the pre-war levels, but it's all relative to commodity prices.

So when you look at fertilizer versus corn prices, corn prices have also come down quite a bit.

So when you look at that fertilizer cost per bushel, it's actually still really high.

Even though fertilizer prices have gone off a cliff.

So, you know, farmers are going to be looking at that here in the next, you know, couple of months now to start buying for 27.

>> What's that phrase?

Fool me once.

I mean, they're not going to get caught flat footed again, right?

>> Hopefully not.

I mean, something has to move whether it's new crop corn prices, whether it's fertilizer coming down even further.

You know, the the export disruption, you know, a lot of analysts have said that even if we, you know, get p sign a deal, open the strait, that there's still going to be a lag time for when we can normalize everything.

And so, you know, in the US, we're actually lucky that we do not rely as much on exports as, say, Brazil does.

So.

So that's going to be interesting here because Brazil is going to be planting their, you know, next crop here starting in September.

So that's something to watch.

>> Okay.

We're gonna go to Brazil in a minute.

I need to kind of clean something up that I just said.

I said farmers were flat footed.

They weren't.

There was a whole bunch of them that had bought ahead.

Most of them.

Most of them.

It was the extra stuff.

They were just caught in whatever they were in area.

Let's go to Brazil for a minute because there was some we talked a little bit about weather in Europe.

What's the weather like in Brazil right now and the impact on what we need to be watching?

>> You know, I think the weather has been pretty benign.

I mean, they're starting right now.

They're or they're actually in the midst of their safrinha harvest.

So, you know, their export season kind of blows up in July.

So that's when we would be competing with them.

But you know, for Brazil.

The biggest focus now, believe it or not, is on that El Nino.

And that's going to be coming to next year because actually Matto Grasso their top corn and soybean producer tend to get dry and have problems with actually both of their soybean and their second corn crop.

So that would be kind of a next year thing, but we're already talking about it.

>> I had seen that.

Thank you for bringing that up.

I mean, your meteorology training has always something I always like to dig into.

So let's keep on the weather theme if we could.

Scott and Indiana is going to give us the weather report because in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, they've had a lot of water damage, lots of nitrogen loss.

So what's that going to do to the market?

>> Well, we were looking at a colorful drought monitor here just a couple of weeks ago that obviously has or or needs to change.

But, you know, kind of looking at some of the precipitation totals that we've gotten, especially across the I states, it's some of the wettest, you know, first halves of June that we've seen in the last 130 years.

And so when I kind of look at comparable years, 2015 is one, 2010 is another.

But 2015 is interesting because that was also heading into a massive El Nino.

And so everyone was kind of concerned that the wet June was really going to hurt.

Yield.

Come the August report.

And it was a disaster for the Bulls because it was an incredibly bearish report.

Ridiculous sell off.

>> And part of that's because the market would rather you be dry than wet, because they think you can grow a crop when it's wet.

Is that what maybe fueled some of that?

>> Well, I think probably.

But again, that was 11 years ago.

And we've had a lot of different, you know, crop situations since then.

And we know a lot more about how farmers produce crops today versus, you know, ten, 20 years ago.

But I think that ultimately you're never going to get the market going on a wet story like you will on a dry story.

Okay.

And so even though we're really wet here in mid June, you still can dry out for July, August.

And now, you know, that's not typically what we might see in a pattern like this.

I already mentioned that, but you can't rule it out because there are, you know, outlier years in there.

Can't rule it out.

I wouldn't vote for it.

But it's, you know, but I think that at this early stage, and especially if you.

Pop up kind of starting in July, we've already had reports this week of tar spot coming in Indiana.

And that that is so early and so.

But again, I think you're going to have trouble generating concern in the market because last year it was this big story and everyone's like, oh, this disease.

And it was out there.

Don't get me wrong, it was out there.

But when you come out at the end with 186.5 bushels per acre, why would a trader be, you know, bulled up by this same discussion a year later?

>> So this, okay, this tar spot thing, we'll get to that in a minute.

But let's go back to the two first questions and tie them a little bit together, because they do have a connection now that I hear you.

So if it is wet and there is nitrogen loss now that all of a sudden there's nitrogen on the market or much more available closer to what I consider normal for price, will that change anybody's philosophy and maybe do some extra teaspoons here and there?

>> Man, that's really hard to say.

That's a tough question.

I don't know what someone would be thinking here.

You know, in mid June about that because I think it just depends.

It can be field dependent too, because, you know, a lot of this rain has been has come along with heavy storms.

And that's so localized.

One field can get three inches.

The one next to it can get none.

So you know, it's not.

So while it is a widespread phenomenon, it can vary so much >> Field to field.

>> So yes, backyard itis you're speaking of it.

Just say it.

Just say the word.

That's what's on our mind.

Bradley and Nebraska, where he has updated us a lot on X about whether his question is, can corn and beans go even lower after Juneteenth, or have they hit the bottom end of the trading range?

And then it gets into the the because of the weather story?

>> Yeah.

I mean, can they.

Sure, sure.

Yes, they definitely can.

I mean, you look at Seasonals and you look at the crop conditions that we're seeing, just kind of that lack of a real weather story that's going to get funds, you know, excited again.

And I'm not again, I don't want to dismiss, you know, weather struggles, you know, too wet or too cold, hot, dry.

I mean, it all, it all matters to a producer.

But when you're just talking very particularly about what a trader would do, what a fun trader is going to do, right?

I think that, you know, you're just not going to generate the excitement on the wet story.

Now, I think that, like I said, you could get a weather story starting in July if it starts to get dry, that's there are still parts of the corn belt that do need some rain.

Not everyone is wet.

So there is that.

And so I think that the other will bring the elephant back into the room.

That is China.

We've started.

We've started to see them come in and buy new crop soybeans this week.

Finally.

But you know, that deal still stands.

The $17 billion.

So of non soybean goods.

So what if they came in and started buying corn next week next month.

I mean that could really that could really turn the tide here.

I think, especially after what funds did a week ago.

>> Okay, I'm going to I'm going to cheat because you gave me something before we recorded.

I'm going to ask you right now, China as an exporter to the United States, we still are heavily dependent on them.

Have we been able to develop anybody else that wants any of our corn or beans that can help?

If we're not going to do this internally?

>> Right.

So actually, our corn market is super healthy right now, and that's without China because we have diversified our customer base and we have just grown our existing customers.

So, so that's really healthy.

Soybeans are a different story.

We depend on China.

And, you know, we do have an expanding crush industry.

We're using more beans at home than we have in years.

But China is just such a big chunk of the pie.

And so that market just depends so much.

And so we know that when we're talking about corn and China not being there, the risk of bringing China into that corn market, oh, man.

Now, now you're going to have people hinging on whether or not China bought corn.

Not if any of this other demand or anything else is going well.

It's just now we're fixated on China.

Right.

But you asked about the really health of the US exports, kind of outside of China.

And if you look at U.S.

Ag exports by value, just excluding China, you had a new high hit in 2025.

But when you adjust all that data for inflation, you actually peaked in 2014.

And you've been kind of plateauing to steadily declining.

So, so what that means is really inflation is outpacing growth in agricultural exports.

So we still have yet to really identify something outside of China, a source of our next real export demand growth.

>> Fascinating.

That's why it's always fun.

And you did that without charts too.

That's right.

I know you always like the charts your stuff.

If you've not followed her on X, by the way, there's always great things to to look at.

I need to do.

I'm going to fold a couple of things together.

Let's just go ahead and put it on the screen with Holt's View Farms.

But Stan also Stan also wants to know at this point of the growing season, do you see anything in the near future that will turn this market higher?

>> So whether maybe China buying maybe.

I think that's I think that that would China would be a really, really big potential catalyst here.

But you know, you saw in the second week of June funds just absolutely capitulate everywhere.

And you saw record short selling in corn.

And so that is a very bearish conviction.

You know, liquidating longs is not as bearish as short selling.

So they were liquidating longs.

They were you know, I'm not too comfortable, you know, with what's going on.

But but a short sell that that is you know I'm now bearish.

So now that we've seen that pattern kind of unfold in corn and funds are roughly flat, you know that that actually you don't like to see funds sell off so hard.

But the fact that they are flat now that means that, you know, they could still change their mind either way.

Whereas in the beans funds are still relatively long.

So, you know, they, they could sell off from here.

There is some room to the downside there just because of where funds are positioned in beans.

>> Yeah.

I wrote down funds because I wanted to set you up on that.

You said something during the program about the hogs and the shorts.

There.

Is there a short or a long in these funds?

That is a surprising be something we need to watch here in the next 2 to 3 weeks.

>> Well, I think the fact that you have funds still reasonably bullish.

Well, we don't we've not had data for a few days.

But just, you know, the last that we know, funds are still reasonably bullish.

Soybeans and flat corn.

I think that that dynamic is really interesting because like I just said, you know, from a positioning standpoint, you still could have downside in beans and in corn.

Don't get me wrong.

But, you know, you've already kind of sucked all the lungs out of the corn market and now you've brought a whole bunch of new bears into that market, whereas soybeans, you know, they're still teetering on that edge.

>> They held out a long time.

>> They have held out a long time.

Yes.

Yeah.

But, you know, the prospect of China just it's never too far away.

>> Is that piece of candy that's just there that we want.

>> It is I know yeah.

>> All right.

Karen, great to see you.

Thank you so much for the time and the insight.

>> Thank you so much.

>> Paul Karen Braun everybody.

Next week.

A growing effort to protect farmland from development.

And Shawn Hackett will be here to break down the markets.

Thanks for joining us.

Have a great week.