Market Plus with Ted Seifried

[Yeager] Welcome to the table for the Friday, December 12th, 2025 installment of Market Plus. Joining us now, Ted Seifried, who is busy between the show and plus you had to look something up. Commitment of traders always comes out about the time we record, and so it always gets to be the how aggressive do you get on your phone before we start recording? What'd you find out?

[Seifried] Yeah. Wow. Another week. And again, this is what as of November 18th I think. So, I mean we're still catching up from the shutdown. They just said they're going to give us an accelerated program on they're releasing these commitment trader numbers. It's almost every day now which is great. You know I think the sooner we get caught out the better. Because when you look at what the trade was, was guessing what the you know, Reuters, average trade guesses and, you know, things like that versus what the numbers actually came out as or are coming out as. Wow. Was the trade wrong? The funds were so much longer in soybeans than the trade had even imagined, and they were long corn. As of November 18th. I mean, the trade thought they were still short, basically to today. So, the funds bought a lot more corn and soybeans. In fact, that week ended in November 18th, ended November 18th. The funds bought 77,000 contracts of corn that was one of the largest one-week fund buying sprees we've ever seen.

[Yeager] I'm sensing a surprise in your voice trade.

[Seifried] Had no idea. No idea? Why not? No idea. I mean, that's what happens during government shutdowns. You know, we don't get commitment of traders. We don't know what that money movement is. We take our best guesses. But, you know, on any given week, the trade can be wrong. For one week. Now you spread that over 44 days, a month and a half. And yeah, you have the potential to be really wrong. In fact, in previous government shutdowns, when we've tried to guess what the fund positions are, we've been really, really wrong. So, this basically held true to that. And the fact is that they were they were a whole lot longer in soybeans than going into the middle of November than we really knew. So now that we're a dollar off the highs, the question is how much of that have they gotten out of? Right. And so, it goes a lot to explain why we were, you know, putting in those highs. But it also goes a lot to explain why at this point, we're maybe close to a dollar off those highs.

[Yeager] Well, that may be ties in to this first question. Possibly. I want you to take the bean side of this one, Nate, in South Dakota, with the excellent corn demand. Are there other factors playing in? I want you to answer this. He also says same thing with soybeans. You kind of talked about the corn side of this with the residual discussion. Soybeans.

[Seifried] Well I want to I do want to do corn because corn first we talked about export demand being really fantastic. And I think that's really reflected on the USDA's balance sheet at this point. And I don't really see any reason for them to continue to raise it at the moment. We talked about feeding residual, but, you know, crop size or other factors at play. You know, look at corn. Corn has been really sideways the last few sessions, in fact, for aside from a about a week and a half dip, we've been really sideways since the beginning of October. And to me that says that we're just we've found a very value price for corn right now. Yes, it's a big crop. Yes, we have good export demand. Yes. The crop size could come down a little bit in January. Yes. Maybe demand comes down a little bit from the feed and residual standpoint. So, I think I think the corn market is just telling you that. Yeah 2-billion-bushel carryover. That's where we're at in 440 to 4 50th March corn. That's where we're at until we know something different or have a big surprise come from somewhere else. South American weather or I don't know, the January report can do all that sort of thing. Right. But until then, corn just feels very comfortable to be exactly where it is in this really kind of ten cent range. While soybeans have had this massive drop off of the highs after having that massive rally up into the recent highs. So, a lot of movement in soybeans, a lot of sideways movement in corn, like corn's just hung in there very well. And that just by itself says something now for soybeans. There's just so much at play. Right? I think there's a lot of us that would argue that the January production number is going to come down, maybe a bushel or two. And if you take that, that bean production down two bushel an acre, that's 160 million bushel. If you take that off a 280 million bushels, 290 million bushels. Oh, boy. That's a very tight balance sheet. But then the other side of that coin is okay. But how do we get to the USDA's export number? Why didn't the USDA lower their export estimate in this December report? You know, and at the moment, I feel like the trade is thinking that if we're going to have a lower production that will be offset, the USDA is waiting to lower the exports in order to offset a lower production number. I think that's just what the trade feels like, and I think that's part of the disappointment in, you know, these Chinese purchases, they're there, but they're not bigger than expected. And so, we really come back off those highs pretty aggressively.

[Yeager] That's interesting. You really are setting up your next appearance through that report. When you keep talking about January, January, January, it's like.

[Seifried] It's the biggest report of the year. And this year I think it ends up being even bigger than most years because we didn't have an October report.

[Yeager] Someone used to call it, you know, a whole bunch of those major events together as one, this one. I think we're going to come up with a new event.

[Seifried] It's everything all at once. It really, really is.

[Yeager] Should be fun. All right. Another question for you. Let's do Gary in Wisconsin. Nice reference. Could the high gold and silver prices chase investors into grains or will we stay with other metals? Dow Jones and Silver hit highs record highs on Thursday. That's a little bit of the backdrop. Gary's question.

[Seifried] Yes. And that's an interesting question. We were having a big conversation about this internally with myself and my team this week. It can be one of two things. And it's a very difficult thing to say right now. I have my opinion. I have heard others as well. But okay, so with the astronomical gains that we've seen in gold and silver and precious metals this year, is that a an indication of a new wave of inflation coming to commodity prices? Will investors be looking at things alternatives like corn and soybeans to get invested in in order to hedge against inflation, because they feel like there's going to be this huge next huge round of inflation coming. That's option A, option B is this is the tail end of the COVID era inflation and the printing money that we had. We saw it happen in a whole lot of other things that have since calmed down. But then this last push is now happening in the precious metals. And this is sort of a blow off top before we get into a period of deflation. And to answer that question, I think a lot of that has to do with what happens with tariffs going forward. Because when you talk about tariffs, that is ultimately inflationary in the short run because it increases the price of things that we buy on a regular basis. But in the long run, tariffs are actually rather deflationary because when you charge higher prices for things, people will start to eventually buy less. We've not really seen that yet. Paul. And as you say, the same thing about beef prices, but eventually history tells us that when things remain at high prices for a long enough period of time, we get this fatigue and we start buying less of it. And when we start buying less of something, that means inventory is back up. That means we put less into production, and that means that ultimately we start discounting prices in order to get people to buy again. And when that happens again, that is deflationary. So, I don't know, I think in the short to mid-run, maybe you could get some of that institutional investor interest, you know, your funds and things like that. Looking at corn and soybeans as, as a, a hedge against near-term inflation. And we just talked about commitment to traders, how the funds had been much bigger buyers than what we were expecting during the government shutdown. Maybe part of that is because of maybe it's because of that. But longer term, I don't think that we're getting into this next big, massive round of commodity or I'm going to say raw commodity inflation. I don't think that is going to be a long-term directive for corn and soybeans. I'm more worried about deflationary possibilities over the next couple of years.

[Yeager] I'm stuck on a word that you subconsciously said in that and you said fledge. I think that's the new way to describe inflation and hedge. That's the that's the I like I mean, it's true. It's absolutely true. And it's out there. So, let's see if Matt and Wisconsin's question how you feel about hedging against March 26th corn here. What's the realistic price goal for March 26th corn? I want you to answer this in based on what you just talked about. Help me.

[Seifried] Yeah. Okay. So, these are numbers that I spend sort of the holiday season working on. And I got to be honest, I haven't really put pencil to paper on them just yet. And a big part of the reason for that is because before I start giving my upside projections for, for corn, I'm also trying to figure out what I think acreage is going to be. We have to have that acreage conversation, I think first, and we have to get a little bit further along in South American weather to have an idea there. That being said, I would like to say that I think that March corn has a pretty good shot of getting near $5. I would not have my sales at $5 even because, you know, everybody else will too. But I think like a four 92.5 is a great place to have a resting order to get into the January report. But even, you know, the planning, planting window and things like that, I, I think it's a good target to have. But I think you got to give that idea up pretty quickly. If we cannot break out and over that 460 mark in the March corn, the longer it takes to do that, and especially if we can't do that by the time we get to the January report or through the January report, I think you have to really start lowering your expectations. But for the moment, I want to be optimistic. I love the export side of the corn market. You know, ethanol keeps moving along as well. I do think production numbers could come down, although I don't think they're coming down super dramatically. I do think they could come down. I think there are some friendly things that the corn market could use to maybe get some upside mobility, but I mean, I want to be tempered with my expectations on that. I don't think anything over $5, like I said, something in the very low four 90s, but I'd be I'd be very happy to have things getting starting to get sold in the low 400 seconds. So, like, you know, have some layered sales up there.

[Yeager] Let's skip Santa question. But thank you, Santa, for contributing. Let's go to Mike C in Iowa.

[Seifried] How are we going to skip Santa question.

[Yeager] Well he's asking do tariffs lower fertilizer prices? I just was going to say can you answer that one shortly?

[Seifried] I mean, anytime you're putting a tariff on something it doesn't lower prices.

[Yeager] So then Mike C's question is well basis improve after the new year?

[Seifried] I've actually started seeing basis improve in some areas already. And it's the time of year where we should expect that to happen. A lot of that might depend on whether, I mean, if we're if we're having a hard time, you know, getting any sort of movement, well, that might be helpful for basis just by itself. But yeah, I want to be I want to be friendly for basis. I mean, export demand has been really good. There's no reason to think that demand falls apart anytime in the near future. And I'm specifically talking about corn here. Is that what the question is?

[Yeager] Well yeah. But okay, let's just go to the last question. Let's just get out of the way because it's tied to the last question, okay? Mike W In Iowa. So, we had Mike C now Mike W Will we ever see the corn hat again in the near future. Are because I think that's what you were trying to say.

[Seifried] Yeah actually it is. I mean, look, of everything that we've got going on here for everything that we know right now, I am the most friendly for corn. And I just, you know, put out a number just shy of $5 of. I'm hoping that we get there between now and spring. So yes, the I thought about it a lot on the way over here today. Paul, I, I wanted to bring the corn hat today. I feel like the next time, if things go the way I'm hoping, there will be a corn hat. That is. That's the idea.

[Yeager] We'll find out in January when you're back. That's right. On a very big, over-the-top, massive, whatever else. Tremendous week that that could be.

[Seifried] Yeah, it should be. Should be a big deal.

[Yeager] All right. We'll see you then. Ted Seifried. Great to see you as always. Thank you sir.

[Seifried] Thanks, Paul. Thanks for having me.

[Yeager] That's going to do it for our Market Plus. Next week. We're going to wrap our 50th season celebration, which Ted was a part of. By the way, he's one of those voices from the past and present. You're going to want to see what Ted looked like back then when he started. We're also going to hear Arlan Suderman his analysis. We'll also see Arlen in that story as well. Thanks for joining us. Have a great week.

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