[PAUL YEAGER] Welcome to the table for the Friday, November 13th, 2026 installment of Market Plus.

Joining us now, Kristy Van Ahn.

Okay, I don't necessarily like to play games, but this is like something I feel like we should have a graphic.

I want to pin you down on three on wheat, corn and beans.

[KRISTI VAN AHN] Yes.

[YEAGER] Are you in a hold or a sell?

Let's start with wheat.

[VAN AHN] Hold.

[YEAGER] Are you holding?

Why?

[VAN AHN] Well, I mean, look at it where it's at on the chart I, I guess if you're forced to, to be a seller, you know, no, hold.

[YEAGER] Okay, let's do this.

Let's and use a four week.

What are you doing in the next four weeks?

Holding on wheat.

[VAN AHN] On wheat holding.

[YEAGER] Okay.

[VAN AHN] Yes.

[YEAGER] Corn or beans or corn.

Hold or sell.

Sorry.

[VAN AHN] Corn.

Hold.

I'm a hold.

I would say that I'm starting to see some basis movements, some narrowing up on basis in some levels, starting in the east and then also just around us that I would be tempted to move on basis before I'd be moving on futures for corn.

[YEAGER] There's a reason I've never hosted a game show because I would mess up all the rules all the time.

Beans.

Are you holding or selling in the next four weeks?

[VAN AHN] I'm holding, but I talked about those price counts earlier.

1269 or yeah.

12691296 talk about a flip flop of numbers.

So, I would say I'm holding, but if you got up to 1296, I would be a seller.

Also, fun fact you've heard pretty much from everyone that they're buying.

Yields are better than anticipated.

I know that they're better than anticipated in southern Minnesota.

You have now seen one of the big crush facilities in southern Minnesota start to really aggressively narrow up their basis.

I think that's the writing on the wall that the demand is there and that I don't want to bet on that demand being there continuously long term.

So, if we can get this fast movement, get up to the 1269, 1296 on a narrowing basis, I am a sell.

[YEAGER] Okay, we're going to come back to basis in a minute though, but let's go stick with beans.

China had a we had a story this week with China and the head of the chip maker Nvidia, who resigns, who is close to the president.

They have traveled and gone to China before.

We're supposed to have another trip with China and the U.S., and we're hoping in this part of the world that we get something talked about with agriculture.

Does that story bleed over into this one with agriculture and commodities?

[VAN AHN] Maybe, possibly a little bit.

I think my main concern with the relationship between the U.S.

And China is that there is a defined timetable on President Trump.

We know this, right?

His you only have a couple more years left.

And my concern is how pleasing will you see that relationship be on China's side, knowing that we only have two years left?

And so that's where I start to get nervous, is that they've committed they committed last year, they committed this year, they committed next year.

But what happens maybe halfway through 2027, do you still see them willing to meet together?

Do you still see them willing to work through things?

And or do you see one step, one side step to the side saying, hey, I'm going to buy my time and wait and see who the next person in office is.

That is my big concern there.

[YEAGER] And you could say it's an economic reason, given what you were talking about with South America, planting early might be able to.

They're really good at growing soybeans down there.

They might have a ridiculous crop.

And we're going to just have so many beans, we're not going to know what to do with in the world.

[VAN AHN] Yeah.

And that's kind of what we are dealing with, though.

We know that South America has had large crops.

We know that they continue to have larger and larger crops because of acreage favoring soybeans.

And so, you can have one situation where, you know, we have these tight carryouts and everything in the U.S., but you can still be looking at the world structure and say, we have too many beans around.

That is definitely a possibility.

And so, China has been so great at committing to the beans.

We're shipping them very well.

We're still ahead of pace, even with exports being raised.

And so, I think that's great.

It's just a matter of.

There is usually a harsh stop at some point, and it's usually around that January, February time that China moves on.

[YEAGER] So instead of a four week question, it's an eight week question and an eight week statement.

Good.

Okay.

Let's go back to basis for a minute.

You mentioned.

The corn basis.

So, tell me which one is a bigger story right now.

Are they both big?

[VAN AHN] Yeah.

Sometimes when futures markets are do I want to use the word like lethargic.

Right.

Like struggling when you're when you're talking about like corn, finding a bottom, sometimes the bullishness in, in a market shows up differently.

It maybe shows up starting with spreads, it shows up possibly starting in basis and then gets to a futures movement.

And I feel like that is where corn is at right now, is that the futures cannot find that spark.

But you're starting to see it in spreads.

You're starting to see it in basis where it's telling you, hey, you know, demand might be lagging, but it's getting there.

And we're starting to see the reason to push for it.

And we feel like this is of value, especially for an end user right now.

And so, I think those are all the writing on the wall that sometimes a bullish story takes form initially in a different way.

[YEAGER] Okay, this isn't really a game, but this is tied to corn.

Does the farmer weld the barn door shut?

And what's going to open it?

Is it only price or is it some of those indicators that you're talking to that change?

[VAN AHN] Okay.

So, it definitely should not be only price.

And I feel like that is one of the biggest struggles for producers that have beans, is that it's easy to, to focus just on price.

And it's also easy to say I have it in a bin.

I'm just going to leave it there.

And you're like, I would hate to empty this bin and have this been empty nine months out of the year.

When I paid for it, it paid for itself.

If you can get that carry and if you can get that basis movement.

So do not think of it just as a price relationship.

I wish that you had more producers focus on basis.

I really do because that is such an easy thing for a producer to work on and benefit their farm.

Far greater than trying to play the emotional game of futures.

[YEAGER] All right, let's play the emotional game of yield.

Let's do pollen.

Minnesota's question here.

If we could.

What do you think we will see for 27 corn and bean acres?

Let's talk about the future.

[VAN AHN] Yeah.

I'm all for games like I'm a crazy game player.

So yes, it's you just I'm very competitive though, so watch out Paul.

So, when you're looking at acre numbers, I just really struggle to get a producer to get away from corn acres.

They love to plant corn.

We continue to have these conversations about higher inputs, right?

But now we've consistently got payments out to a farmer, agree with them, disagree with them.

But you're having these payments to try and offset the input cost.

And whether you're directly relating that to your inputs, you're saying, okay, hey, I had some help with that.

Maybe I should still focus on corn.

And so, when I look at this situation, unless you see something drastically change, corn has the upper hand, especially anytime you can get close to a five, especially if we're somewhat close to a five throughout February for crop insurance price generation, there is something about that number that takes a whole lot more for soybeans to be able to.

And I think that you saw those increase of soybean acreage in so many areas this year that you have some wiggle room to go back to corn.

I think we had caught ourselves on corn, on corn, on corn for so many years.

You got that little bit of a breather here.

And I think you go back to that.

I also think that you're probably starting to say with the conditions that have improved in winter wheat, we could be seeing some acres go back to that, which I do think would probably take away from soybeans.

So, I do think the favor is still on corn.

[YEAGER] Because of the time you were planting winter wheat, the conditions were good.

The price was good.

Yes.

And now it's in the ground and you're kind of you're stuck for a few.

Right?

Right.

Okay.

All right.

Let's go back to livestock because we had three great questions.

We're going to start with Joel in Oklahoma, his first one, if we could, about will the cattle market in 27 trade fundamentals or fear?

[VAN AHN] Yeah.

So, I do think that it's going to take really, really a lot to get the fundamentals away from mattering.

We know that it is tight.

We know that the ability for that to change is going to come at a very slow pace.

It's very hard to do.

And so, this is going to be a consistent story around the market that no matter what you want to do with, no matter what argument you want to come back with, you're always going to be able to come back with, yeah, but look at our inventory, look at our size.

And so, I think that you're always going to be able to have that.

However, we do have to remember that there is a bigger picture trying to change that.

You look at the dairy herd that's coming in and using that as supplemental.

You look at kind of some changes of dynamics.

You look about, you know, coming, the cows coming across the border.

Once again, we're at 60% of what we normally do.

It won't take us long.

There's another port opening, I think very soon.

So, you have those stories.

But I do think at least through Christmas, you should hold those fundamentals.

And I don't see the current state of the economy changing enough, because we have probably priced in interest rate hikes, at least two of them.

And so, I do think that in the picture, it's going to take some time before we can really say the economic picture has changed.

[YEAGER] Okay, so Joel's other question revolves around the feeders.

And I don't think we covered this in the program, but we might have I was really trying to listen.

I was, but I was also trying to get us on time.

Joel wants to know.

I've been waiting to retain heifers for breeding is this time with drought and tariffs in the mix?

Is this the time to keep holding or is this a time to not?

[VAN AHN] I feel like this is such a hard conversation because you're talking about, you know, you're talking about once you're out, how hard it is to get back in.

I just this is a hard conversation for me.

You need to really pencil it down at your farm level, whether it's worth it or not.

But when I look at it, I think that if you are considering, you look at where 50% retracement on live cattle, you're past that on feeder cattle, especially if you can get up to those recent highs.

If you can do some marketing, if you can layer in some protection so you're not dealing with a washout, I think that makes a different situation.

But I would not go into this situation blindly and not protecting this recent rally.

[YEAGER] Lastly, the report, the conditions of the world, the election, is there anything as we get ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas that we should maybe as a family, talk about when it comes to the commodities other than farm transitions?

[VAN AHN] Yeah, I think there's plenty you could be talking about.

But I, you know, I just think that when I look at it and I look at the farm economy and I look at the state of farm, I cannot stress this enough, especially after, you know, this slide that we saw, you know, in corn and we saw this slide in soybeans, the amount of people I've talked to that don't have any corn marketed.

I cannot stress this enough.

Your farm is a business and continue to treat it like a business.

And look at it on those profitability levels, on your inputs, on what you have, and make sure you're doing, you know, responsible actions because eventually this is going to catch up.

If we're not marketing at profitable levels.

And there are those tough years, right?

There's those tough years you market in corn goes a dollar past where you market or your, you know, corn, seven bucks and you're bringing in $3 corn.

I can't imagine that feeling it would stink.

Right?

But just make sure you're being diligent on that and treating your farm like a business, because it truly is a business, and it's a business that you want to pass on from generation to generation.

[YEAGER] My business is now is to say thank you and we're done.

Thanks, Kristi.

[VAN AHN] Great to see you.

And next week we are going to talk about one family's effort to renovate the land and keep the cranberry harvest coming.

And the commodity market analysis will be with Dan Hueber.

Thanks for joining us.

Have a great week.