3.28.25 Tredas Weekly Recap

Weekly Action:

May25 Corn down 12c at $4.53

May25 Beans up 13c at $10.23

June25 Hogs down 1.75 at $95.775

June25 Live cattle up 1.85 at $204.85

May25 Feeder cattle down 0.65 at $284.975

Dec25 Corn down 8c at $4.42

Nov25 Beans up 20c at $10.28

July25 KC Wheat down 37c at $5.66

Current 25 Crop soybean/corn ratio = 2.32

Grains:

Back and forth tariff talk continues to influence day to day market action. President Trump is preparing to unveil a sweeping new wave of trade tariffs on April 2—what he’s calling “Liberation Day.” The plan centers on so-called “reciprocal tariffs,” designed to match or exceed the duties other nations place on US goods. 

The market prepares for the highly anticipated prospective plantings and quarterly grain stox report on Monday at 11am.

See below trade estimate summary from RJ O’Brien:

Weather:

Moisture expected in the next ten days over a good majority of the corn/soybean producing area, especially to the east. Yesterday’s new Drought Monitor showed improvement again last week for corn and soybean territory, but worsening conditions in cotton, sorghum, and winter wheat areas.

Economy:

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 Tax revenue collected by the IRS set to plummet, report says.

Officials at the IRS and Treasury Department are anticipating tax revenue to drop more than 10% by April 15 compared with last year, the Washington Post reported Saturday, citing three people with knowledge of the situation.

The loss of tax receipts is expected as more individuals and businesses don’t file taxes or attempt to avoid paying balances owed to the IRS. The amount of lost federal revenue could top $500 billion, the paper said.

Officials said the prediction is directly linked to shifting taxpayer behavior and President Donald Trump’s cuts at the IRS.

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President Donald Trump made good on his promise Wednesday and slapped 25% tariffs on imported automobiles, further escalating a trade war with America’s top trading partners.

While specific details remain to be announced, Trump said the tariffs would apply to those cars and trucks not made in the U.S. “If you build your car in the U.S., there’s no tariff,” he said. The tariffs would take effect on April 3. “Importers of automobiles under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement will be given the opportunity to certify their U.S. content and systems will be implemented such that the 25% tariff will only apply to the value of their non-U.S. content,” the statement said.

For consumers who now pay an average of $48,000 for a new car, the tariffs could increase the cost by $12,000, although it might be less depending on the actual content of the materials used to make it.

__________

The U.S. economy expanded at a healthy annual 2.4% pace the final three months of 2024, supported by a year-end surge in consumer spending, the government said Thursday in a slight upgrade of its previous estimate fourth-quarter growth. Growth in gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — decelerated from a 3.1% pace in July-September 2024, the Commerce Department said. For all of 2024, the economy grew 2.8%, down a tick from 2.9% in 2023.

Consumer spending rose at a 4% pace, up from 3.7% in third-quarter 2023. But business investment fell, led by an 8.7% drop in investment in equipment. A drop in business inventories shaved 0.84 percentage points off fourth-quarter GDP growth.

Wednesday’s report showed continued inflationary pressure at the end of 2024. The Federal Reserve’s favored inflation gauge – the personal consumption expenditures, or PCE, price index – rose at an annual rate of 2.4%, up from 1.5% in the third quarter and above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core PC inflation registered 2.6%, compared to 2.2% in the third quarter.

Something That Probably Means Nothing:

After getting a record 14 teams into the tournament, the SEC set yet another mark with its 7 entrants in the Sweet 16, again upstaging the ACC, which previously held the record of 6 teams in 2016. The NCAA says the odds of predicting all 63 NCAA Tournament games correctly are approximately 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808, or 1 in 9.2 quintillion. The closest anyone has come to a perfect March Madness bracket, according to the NCAA, was in 2019 when an Ohio man predicted the first 49 games correctly, a record that still stands. Gregg Nigl, a neurologist from Columbus, Ohio, set the record, but his streak ended when #3 Purdue defeated #2 Tennessee in the Sweet 16, a game that was the 50th game of the tournament.

Quote of the Week:

“A lot of people notice when you succeed, but they don’t see what it takes to get there.”

—Dawn Staley, University of South Carolina Gamecocks

Have a great weekend!