China and South America are on holiday, trading volume is thin.

February 17, 2026

The grain trade is soft this morning with soybean oil having recovered to a higher price, supporting beans. China is on holiday today as their celebration of the Lunar New year, while South America celebrates Fat Tuesday. Trading interest was low-volume overnight as we get the week started after the three-day weekend.

After last week’s strength, the Doubting Thomas’s are back, not anticipating any Chinese bean sales until possibly late March ahead of Pres. Trump’s visit to China. The trade continues to ignore strong export pace for seeing in corn where year to date sales are 73% of what the USDA has estimated to September 1. In many are saying USDA estimates for exports may not be quite attainable. This requires corn sales to fall off dramatically compared to what we currently are seeing a weekly basis. Also, the current corn/soybean ratio is 2.4:1. This favor soybeans for planting, but farmers still loved talk corn.