North Gower Grains

Wednesday, February 18, 2026, 7:15 am

Tuesday was another mostly negative day for our markets.  Spot corn closed down 5 1/2, spot soybeans closed up 1, spot winter wheat closed down 11 and spot spring wheat closed down 3 1/2.  In the overnight trade all of our markets are on the positive side.  Oil closed down $0.56 yesterday at $62.33 per barrel.  It is stronger in trading this morning with it now valued at $63.66 per barrel.  Our dollar had a low yesterday around noon of $0.731 US and a high of $0.734 US later in the trading day.  It has eased back a bit since then with it currently valued this morning at $0.733 US.

Biofuel optimism in the US is driving our prices this morning.  The EPA in the US is supposed to be sending its recommendations for biofuel blending regulations to the White House for sign off this week.  They are supposedly going to be looking at increased biodiesel usage which would result in more demand specifically for soybean oil.  This has resulted in soybean oil hitting its highest price since July of 2023 in the overnight trade.  Soybeans have rallied just over $1 per bushel on the CBOT from the January low.

Soybean crush data in the US was released yesterday for January.  They utilised 221.564 million bushels of soybeans for crushing in January.  Once again they set a new record for amount of soybeans crushed in the month. The crush actually declined by 1.5% from December but increased 11% from January of 2025.  Soybean oil stocks increased by 16% from December and 49% from January of 2026.  This was their highest stock level since April of 2023.  Both the amount of soybeans crushed and the soybean oil inventory were larger than the marketplace was looking for.

Yesterday we talked about some negative pressures in the wheat market and they helped to drive wheat prices lower.  Remember world wheat stocks are at an 8 year high and this will help to keep a ceiling on prices going forward.

As wheat prices fell lower it also brought some pressure over to the corn market.  Corn closed yesterday at their second lowest close for this month.  Weekly corn exports remain strong in the US however they still are projected to have carry out stocks of just over 2 billion bushels.  Until those stock levels significantly decrease it will be hard to see any large rally for the corn market.