**Wheat Price Trends and Peripheral Markets; Charts and Commentary. More Sense Per Bushel.**
MarketBullets® Friday, March 20, 2026: Pre-Dawn
Best estimate of duration of the Israel-Iran-U.S. war is “several weeks to two months.” That puts us into mid-May. There is a convergence of wheat market factors in this timeframe, often called “The Silly Season”. The new crop emergence and early harvesting, along with the effects of drought in major areas of the northern hemisphere are always a risk-on seasonal force in the markets. Volatility is bound to increase, even more than we have seen already. Marketing in this environment requires thoughtful and deliberate decisions, hopefully based on reliable measurements and plans prepared under quiet, low-stress conditions in advance.
Crude oil’s chart shows a deceleration of the upward shot that printed a $119.48 high on March 9. Early Friday March 20 trading in the May WTI contract was under $96 and has been in a sideways fade for a week. Intuition says that the amount of oil moving through the Straits of Hormuz will slowly increase over the next month. The extent of the damage to oil exporting and refining facilities in the Levant and surrounding areas will be a longer-term factor, but the market seems to know that there will be an easing of the problem of energy flow.
Wheat prices have not been impacted directly by the war and will de-couple from the crude oil price at some point. A period of consolidation and backfill is growing more probable.
USDA’s Quarterly Stocks and Prospective Planting reports and due on the morning of the 12th. These spring reports are always a tone-setter, and the timing of the reports seems likely to coincide with changes in war status. The calculations of effects will have to wait.
Meanwhile the trend is positive for wheat, with technical caveats (retracements and headline-driven, knee-jerk reactions). It is prudent to be paying some attention to the markets.
The Box-o-Rox (BoR) is still in “Suspend Incremental Sales” mode. The exit trigger level has risen to $6.00 in Chicago July futures, just 16 cents below current trading Friday morning. There is nothing wrong with reducing market exposure incrementally.
Allendale (a Crystal Lake, Illinois-based agricultural advisory and brokerage firm established in 1984) released their 25th annual survey of planting expectations completed on Marcy 13th. Anticipation of a shift away from corn toward soybeans is on the table. All-wheat acreage ideas are indicated at 44.877 million acres, 451,000 acres below last year.
Andre at Russian advisory firm “Sovecon” increased his estimate of the Russian 2026 wheat crop to 3.216 billion bushels, a 1.98% rise in size.
Stay tuned. There is change blowing in the wind.
-Gary
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MarketBullets® Thursday, March 19, 2026: Pre-Dawn
Wednesday’s 16-cent rally brought wheat back above $6 on Chicago Soft Red Winter — but the market did it in the single most unconvincing way possible: rising on familiar HRW dry weather reports and a war that’s been priced in already, into a headwind of a strengthening dollar and export competition that has not gone anywhere. The bounce is real. The permission to relax is not.
Interest rates are rising. The two-year Treasury Note yield had declined about 1% since the moderate high yield in mid-January into a low on March 2 (The relationship between the T-Notes price and yield is an inverse - lower prices push rates up and vice-versa). In the last 3 weeks the price of 2-year Notes has declined enough to put that 1% back on and then some. On the March 18 Fed meeting, Powell and Co determined that no interest rate cut was appropriate. This factor is more related to what it costs to store wheat than any direct price influence.
The Plains are drying out — and the market is paying attention, just not enough. Kansas topsoil moisture rated “short” or “very short” jumped to 48% this week from 38% the prior week. Markets don’t price drought — they price the probability of a drought becoming a shortfall. Right now they’re landing somewhere between nervous and skeptical.
The Iran war premium: still embedded, still fragile, still the dominant wild card. Managed money funds flipped from near-record short to net long in a few weeks — that covering drove much of our long-awaited rally. On March 11, a single White House comment about the conflict “nearing an end” took 15 cents out in one session. The premium is held up by the continuing war and vulnerable the moment credible peace language surfaces.
The dollar is doing something that should make wheat sellers pay attention. The U.S. Dollar Index touched a 10-month high this week, making American wheat more expensive for international buyers. Export Inspections fell 13.76% week-over-week. Thursday’s Export Sales report is the first real test of whether demand is advancing or retreating at current price levels.
The market seems to have voted crude oil as the swing variable — and it moved in wheat’s favor by exactly eleven cents Wednesday. April crude settled at $96.32, up $0.11. That is a market in pause mode, not expansion. A stable Fed, stalled crude, and a stronger dollar is not the configuration of a market that wants to extend higher without fresh news.
March 31 is the next date that actually matters — and it is twelve days away. The USDA Prospective Plantings and Quarterly Stocks inventory reports are the first hard data on 2026 acreage intentions. If wheat acres come in below expectations, new crop futures may get a boost. This report will help set the tone for the next real chapter.
What fund positioning tells you that the price chart doesn’t: Funds will sell on peace news faster than any producer can call their elevator. When the war moves “below the fold” in the papers, nervous cash wheat buyers will take a day off and the market will begin to re-focus on fundamentals again. The war seems unlikely to end on a bang. It will probably will fade with a whimper.
Our wheat price up-trend is alive but will be required to show us a new high above $6.50 in Chicago July contracts ($6.42 for May) in order to preserve the “higher high and higher low” pattern that is the signature of an up-trend.
Stay on plan. Stay tuned here.
-Gabriel
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Wheat Price Trends and Peripheral Markets
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