The Grain Brief® – Friday Afternoon Edition
May 15, 2026
“The Rally Lasted 48 Hours.”
Tuesday, the market priced risk.
By Friday, abundance was back already?
CORN SOYBEANS & WHEAT
All sharply lower after the Trump–Xi summit delivered headlines…
… but very little substance for agriculture.
The market had already priced the story in:
🇨🇳 bigger Chinese demand
🇺🇸 stronger US exports
tighter balance sheets
Instead, traders got:
“Soybeans are all taken care of.”
And the liquidation started immediately.
Corn funds dumped roughly 22,500 contracts Thursday alone after aggressively buying earlier in the week.
US export sales: 684k MT
lowest in 11 weeks
far below expectations
🇧🇷 Brazil keeps getting bigger
US weather remains mostly favorable
Corn and supply still looks heavy.
Soybeans lost more than 50 cents from Wednesday’s highs.
Weekly export sales fell to a marketing-year low.
🇧🇷 Brazil continues dominating global flows with record supplies.
🇨🇳 China still has cheaper alternatives.
The market wanted fresh demand…
It received old commitments.
Wheat fundamentals remain the strongest in the complex.
🇺🇸 USDA projects the smallest US winter wheat crop since 1965.
Kansas tour yields disappointed again.
Southern Plains drought is still real.
But when liquidation becomes macro-driven… even the strongest fundamentals get sold.
🇪🇺 EUROPE
Euronext resisted better than Chicago thanks to:
a collapsing euro
crude oil above $103
growing inflation fears tied to Hormuz
At the same time:
excessive rains
localized frost
flowering stress
…are replacing drought as Europe’s new concern.
This week reminded traders of something important:
Large crops still matter.
But so do:
energy
geopolitics
currencies
and fragile logistics.
Because even cheap grain depends on an expensive system.
The premium disappeared fast.
The vulnerabilities didn’t.
The Grain Brief® is a publication by Sandro Filippo Puglisi
