[Paul Yeager] Welcome back to the table for the Friday, April 3rd, 2026 installment of Market Plus.

Chris Robinson with us.

All right, Chris, you caught me.

I took two of your lines.

I read your newsletter.

I stole the crystal ball line because someone had alerted me.

Chris always asks about the crystal ball.

We'll talk about your crude oil crystal ball in a moment.

But the one I want to get to first is the cracker Jack in the box soybeans.

The surprise of the 100,000 acres soybeans was falling out of favor.

Does this report mean that it's back because there's less?

[Chris Robinson] Yeah, absolutely.

And you know, the beans are made in August.

That's always the kicker that, you know, July 4th weekend, who knows what the weather is going to be like in July 4th weekend.

That's I think that that's going to be something to continue to watch.

And in all fairness to this rally really was began with the with the soybeans, right?

And the fact that we were rallying, even though people anticipated we were going to have a lot more soybean acres, that was kind of the first kind of disconnect.

So, the market, you know, it's a futures market, it's looking ahead and I think that it's something I would continue to watch.

So, I would I would think that Nov beans, if Nov beans can ever get back up above 12, 1250, you're going to see the funds are already long.

So, if they get a reason to add to it, they will.

And if we start to get problems with inflation, this thing could snowball in itself.

And then you'd have more money chasing whatever physical commodities they can get Ahold of.

So that's something I would watch.

That's a big one if and boy, if I knew that I have two kids weddings to pay for this year, I would love to know that beforehand.

So that's something I watch closely.

[Yeager] When you say when or soybeans started this rally, when did soybeans start this?

[Robinson] Really after that January low corn really got hammered and beans hung in there.

That was interesting.

And then we started hearing kind of, you know, I work talk with a lot of farmers and producers.

There were some elevators that were saying, hey, if you lock us in 11 beans right now, we'll give you this.

The other thing they were trying to sort of get in front of this demand issue.

So, like I said, the fact that we didn't really get hammered in the beans, that was the first kind of disconnect.

And I've been doing this long enough to watch where something was.

Something just seemed a little bit off.

So, and, but I think that as soybeans go, that is going to be the driver.

And you see it every time, you know, we have 20, 30 cent moves in soybeans.

It will be 10 or 15 in corn.

So, corn soybeans are going to be the driver.

I would continue to watch that moving ahead.

And then you know we don't want to get back too deep in the woods.

But there's going to be a meeting in May with the president, with the Chinese Premier G. And they're going to talk about that.

So, if we could ever get that ironed out, that's the big what if because we couldn't figure out why were the Chinese paying up for our beans when they can get beans cheaper in South America, other than they were trying to stay on some sort of good negotiating stance with president.

So that is going to be the real driver if we get out of that meeting with something positive.

I think that would be supportive for beans moving ahead.

[Yeager] Well, that sounds like I should hold right now.

[Robinson] Definitely, definitely don't get oversold.

Definitely, definitely protect, you know, at least 11, 20 or 1130 beans.

Just protect it.

But that, I mean, you get yourself a floor and leave the upside open.

You know, we started this year, we were worried about we were 1050.

We were worried about $10 beans.

So, to be sitting at 1150, for whatever reason, you want to make sure that you're, you're defending that revenue.

And because the last thing you want to do is guess wrong and say, well, you know, we thought we were going to get all this demand if that ever was to go away, at least you can, you know, $11 beans works for most guys, you know, ten, 50, $10, maybe not so much, but if I look at new crop soybeans, two years ago, we were under ten bucks.

We were at 980.

You know, Christmas 2024.

So, to be up where we are right now, regardless of the reason, that's revenue that you don't want to see go away.

[Yeager] Part of the discussion with beans is the meal.

Last week it was the oil.

But for the hog market, when it comes to feeding, there's also China involved in that discussion, but is the only story in hogs this week, or at least the headline story.

It's the shadow of what the cattle are doing.

[Robinson] Yeah.

You see, actually we've seen some spreading.

If you look at the deferred months where I like to look out there in July, July, it had a really good rally.

But then we gave back about 10 or 20% of it.

If you look at the spot month, spot month, we'd had a rally from 80 to about 99.

We'd given back half of it.

If you look at April.

So, a lot of that was, I think, driven by guys buying more cattle.

And they tended to do that spread.

So, you know, at the end of the day, the supply chain is a lot different than it is for cattle than it is for hogs.

I think the one thing people always worry about with hogs is what if we get, you know, a ASF story, that thing drops awfully fast.

If that happens.

But I think the bigger driver and at the end of the day is what's going on with cattle.

And I think these fund managers, they have a massive, long and live cattle feeder cattle and the lean hogs as well.

So, they're still well represented on the long side on that bet.

[Yeager] Well, there's the June cattle chart.

Let's ask Colin.

And I was question if we could continue on that one.

Colin wants to know will we see 250 on the board between now and August for live cattle?

[Robinson] We're almost there.

Right.

I think we're 244 today.

Memory serves me right.

So, and again, to have that type of recovery that we had, that's very, very impressive.

So, and I think as long as the Packers are continue to have the math be in the black, have to check it this week when I get done with you tonight.

But and as long as the consumer continues to show up, you know, trust me, a lot of people that were short cattle that wish they weren't short cattle.

[Yeager] Let's stick with a little bit on that feeder side.

You had mentioned this during the program about eating through it.

So, fill in North Dakota is talking about a little bit about our usage side of things.

Do you forecast corn to use?

Let's start again.

Do you forecast corn use to be less meet or exceed 2025?

[Robinson] Well, 2025 was gangbusters and we continue to have excellent, excellent demand for corn.

I mean, we don't think Mexico enough for how much corn they continue to buy from us.

So that's been the a lot of times, you know, it's almost like people don't want to talk about it because it's something good.

Like if they talk about it, maybe it'll go away.

But the demand for corn is one reason.

I think if we hadn't had the demand for corn, I think corn would have been under four bucks.

I mean, it just they kept coming for it.

Coming for it.

And if you're an end user, they recognize value when they see it.

So, you know, I think the thing that we're still digesting or dealing with is the fact that we grew 17 billion bushels last year, right?

Are we going to grow 17 billion bushels again this year?

I mean, you know, right now the market's well supplied.

If we had grown 15 billion bushels and had the demand that we had then yeah, we'd probably be in a different situation with even stronger prices right now.

So, for 76th May corn, you know, that's the next hurdle we got to get above.

That was the spike.

[Yeager] Well there's a thing to talk about that with your connection to the what ifs.

And we grew why we were maybe different was a little bit of the weather story.

And that's kind of what Gary and Wisconsin's question is alluding to.

With Acreage report done, planting season, getting started, does this mean sideways trading until summer?

Acreage and pollination, dot dot dot, I'm going to add to Gary's question.

[Robinson] Yeah, I think that we've been given a gift.

I don't want to get oversold, but I also don't want to, you know, say that's it.

That tops in here.

I can I think we're continuing to see these whipsaw trades like we have one day.

I'm happy we have puts on for guys the next day.

I wish we had more calls on.

I mean this market is so the word I would call it is B schizophrenic.

And it's all coming off what's happening with crude oil.

There's so much money chasing this.

So yeah, I would continue to see probably choppy trade sideways until we start getting, you know, first of all, we're going to get any planning delays.

Is it going to be too drought too dry all that the big what if that we go through every year, every year, every year?

So, you know, you can get protection until the end of May.

It's probably the cheapest way to go and keep your upside open.

[Yeager] Let's talk a couple of minutes, our last couple here on crude oil.

Why is it that the United States I know that the WTI is not a US trade, but why is it so much of a headline story in the United States, other than what we see with the price, when this is an even bigger deal globally?

[Robinson] Yeah, I mean, you have a broken supply chain for Europe because of what's going on in that Strait of Hormuz really.

And how is that going to play out?

It's going to affect Europe and it's going to affect India as time goes on.

Much more, I think, adversely than it's going to affect us, because we do produce a bunch of oil and so on and so forth.

But, you know, at the end of the day that that Strait of Hormuz.

And that's why you see, you know, one day we're under $100, the next day we're up above 111.

But if you go look at the Brent and the, the, the price for crude that comes out of Bahrain, it's already through the roof.

So, I wish that it's above my pay grade.

But that's, that's a problem where if they don't get a handle on it, I don't know how they're going to get a handle on it.

And, and again, it's got to be between, you know, the powers that be.

But I would be concerned about that if I was, if I lived in Europe or if I lived in Asia, it's really going to be the problem.

And the sooner this thing gets wrapped up, the better it is for everybody.

[Yeager] Is that the pressures then that come politically from the European countries and the Asian countries on the United States to try to work out some deal with Iran, or do they pressure Iran more?

Is that where this is this how this ends?

[Robinson] I think this is one of those things where it's, you know, I think unintended consequences.

It's like, okay, we knew we had to fix this problem, but it was going to create other problems.

And boy, if you, if you and I could sit here and figure out how to fix that Strait of Hormuz problem, just where things got to be reasonably safe, that would calm things a lot, right?

Calm things down a lot more.

But I'm a glass half full person.

I try to be, you know?

And again, just two nights ago, we thought this solution was over.

Things can change very, very quickly.

And that's why, you know, the night trading is very, very, very dangerous because that's where all this happens.

You wake up in the morning and it's like, what happened last night?

[Yeager] We didn't even get into that with you.

And normally that's one of your main things we talk about.

But we got you.

We got you positive that way to end.

Sounds good.

Thanks, Chris.

[Robinson] Thank you sir.

Good to be here.. [Yeager] Chris Robinson, everybody, on our Market Plus.

Thank you.

Next week we are going to sort the livestock market into an extended discussion.

And we're also going to break down these commodity markets as we have Ross Baldwin and Jeff French.

So, get those questions ready.

Thank you so very much for joining us.

Have a great week