Week Ending 5/29/2026

Expectations for a deal with Iran and improved Midwest weather resulted in a selloff in the corn market last week. July futures ended the week 16 lower while December corn closed 11 cents lower. The funds ended the week long 178,337 corn contracts and long 188,229 soybean contracts.

President Trump announced early last week that a deal with Iran is “largely negotiated” and he will either sign “a great and meaningful” pact with Iran “or there will be no deal”. Iran acknowledged an agreement was being discussed, but claimed the agreement wasn’t imminent and was not going to concede on the nuclear issue.

Social media posts by President Trump showed a blend of demands in addition to an agreement made with Iran to extend the ceasefire. The market took the statements as further evidence that a deal will be struck, and it was on its way to being finalized. As part of the agreement, the US lifts the naval blockade, and Iran opens the Strait of Hormuz to normal traffic without fees. Questions around how this will be enforced and whether Iran will act in good faith is what kept the energy markets from falling too hard.

This war situation has certainly become tiresome when seeing the on again/off again nature and how it impacts our markets. While corn has an excellent story from a demand perspective and potential acreage losses, we still have plenty of old-crop corn to chew through. I’m not bearish, but July futures closing below the $4.50 level on Friday was concerning as it is now trading below the levels where March and May futures expired.($4.52 ½ and $4.51 ½ respectively) As for new crop corn, I feel like we will have support at least until we see the acreage report at the end of June. For December (CZ) corn we are currently trading at the $4.75 support level. If we close below this level, we are probably headed to $4.68 which is where we closed before the war broke out.

Corn planting progress came in at 86% complete as of last Sunday night (5/24/26), which was up 10% from the previous week and 3% ahead of the five-year average. Corn emergence is 60%, which is up 21% from last week and 2% ahead of the five-year average.

The upcoming stretch of warmer and drier weather across the Midwest is expected to significantly improve crop development, accelerate emergence, and allow the last bit of planting to warp up. This warm stretch is welcome following the cool and wet spring most dealt with. We will get our first crop condition report this afternoon which should improve greatly in the next week.

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