AG Squawk AM 8/4/2026 with Jed Sidwell | PRRSV and Mickey-D's

We run through a quick market snapshot as livestock trade lower, grains jump, and crude oil slides again. We connect weather risk, soybean crush headlines, and hog health trends to what they can mean for pricing and demand all the way down to McDonald’s.
• Livestock market recap and why a pullback follows a strong cattle move
• Grain strength across soybeans, corn, and wheat alongside weaker crude oil
• Corn Belt flooding risk and persistent storms plus heat and drying in the Southern Plains
• June soybean crush data with a focus on falling oil yield and what it signals
• PRRSV positives by age category and why keeping sow farms clean matters
• McDonald’s earnings, sales trends, and why big food buyers matter to farmers
• Today’s economic calendar and regional impacts from smoke and drought conditions
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Good morning and welcome to Ag Squawk AM. Jed Sidwell here, live from Joliet, Illinois. Today, this cowboy is going to talk about pigs for a little bit, as well as the company

Welcome And What’s Ahead

SPEAKER_00 0:22

that probably caused me to gain a few pounds in college. That would be McDonald's. Get to all of that here in a bit. Looking at the livestock market yesterday, it was red across the board. A slight correction after this hard upward move that we've seen in cattle. Live cattle closed up 50 cents higher at 226.

Livestock Market Snapshot

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Feeder cattle were down a buck and twenty-three cents at 342 and a half. And lean hogs closed down a dollar and eighteen cents at 83.68. Different discussion on the grains yesterday, though. They went up big yesterday. Big jump in soybeans, corn, and wheat. They corrected

Corn Belt Flooding And Plains Heat

SPEAKER_00 1:14

back just a little

Grains Rally And Energy Slide

SPEAKER_00 1:15

bit overnight as I quote the market here live with our quotes from plus 500. September corn is at 447. September beans are 1164 in Chicago. Is at 644 live. One thing to check out is that crude also went down big earlier this morning, kind of gapping lower yet yet again, like we saw yesterday. So make sure to pay attention to the energy markets today. Well, on the weather discussion for today, the Corn Belt continues to say stay wet and active with flooding risks persisting throughout the northern corn belt. Once again, we have that giant purple dot there over Iowa and northern Missouri there. It's really been a pretty strong weather pattern of just persistent storms out here. You kind of see some water standing in the corners of some fields, so hopefully that drains off effectively. The northern plains, though, they're finally seeing a break from the heat, which is good to hear. But the southern plains, man, it's gonna stay dang hot down there. And the southern plains in the mid-south are going to turn incredibly dry here into the weekend. The Kansas, Western Kansas, is likely to not see rain for the next 10 days. Well, on to the grain markets, the June crush the landed yesterday. That'd be the NAS soybeans. And it really kind of landed on where the trade estimates thought 11 or 1217.8

Soy Crush Report And Oil Yield Drop

SPEAKER_00 2:45

million bushels versus the 12.7 17.9 or 217.9 million bushels expected. But the real story is the lower oil crop. Oil yields fell to 1163 pounds per bushel versus 11.93 a year ago. But this happened at the same time that crush ran up over 10%. No, I'm not an expert by any means when it comes to the soybean crush, but it seemed like a big enough headline that I needed to pop it up here. Pay attention to the soybean markets. I'm gonna guess that's why we saw a bit more volume in soybeans last night on the open. Let's go ahead and talk about livestock for a second. PRRSV or PERS, as it's commonly referred to as us in the livestock space, has been a major headline in

PRRSV Trends In The Hog Herd

SPEAKER_00 3:35

the hog world here recently. And I thought this chart was interesting to look at. That is the percentage of positive submissions by age category. The red one up there is wean to market, and that one we have luckily seen the biggest decrease in. What I'm hoping to see fall next is that blue line, the adult slash sow farm category. If we can keep the sows healthy and clean, then we can keep the farrowing houses and we can start to stop the s the cycle of purrs throughout these farrowing barns. And if we can keep it out of the crate, I think we can keep the rest of the kind of the supply chain of pork a little bit healthier. Well, this headline caught my attention this morning from both Trade the News and it was on the front page of CNBC this morning. You know, not directly aggro ag related,

McDonald’s Earnings And Why It Matters

SPEAKER_00 4:26

but certainly tied to the food production chain. McDonald's earnings beat estimates, and the chain announces a U.S. head, a new U.S. head to accelerate their growth. McDonald's posted mixed second quarter results. It beat her earnings, but it missed revenue expectations. The company said their new president will take over. Sky Anderson's her name. She's a 26-year veteran with McDonald's. She's replacing Joe Erlinger. McDonald's said U.S. same store sales rose uh 10 or 0.8% in the quarter as at the same time as store traffic kind of slowed a little bit. It's interesting to kind of watch these big, big food sales companies because they are the end buyer, or the end buyer, at least for the farmer of our products. They go ahead and process it down pretty far and then sell it to the consumer. But man, McDonald's feeds a lot of people every single day. So pay attention to things like when they come out like this. It'll be interesting to watch as they see new direction over there. The economic calendar for today, the Purdue Ag Sentiment comes out at 8:30 a.m. Or perdon't, as I like to make fun of my boilermaker girlfriend about. The Jolts Job Report

Today’s Reports, Smoke, And Dryness

SPEAKER_00 5:43

comes out at 9 a.m. and the durable cap goods comes out at 9 as well. Those are all central time for you. Well, make sure and pay attention to the forecasts, regardless of where you live here. We're seeing smoke still coming across our northern border. It's in real smoky here in the Chicago area. Say your prayers for the folks down south that are needing some rain. It's pretty dry. I spent a lot of time in eastern Colorado last week, and man, it could use a drink out there. I don't have much for you today, but I would encourage you to go on and listen to Mr. Davis Michelson with his guests this afternoon. Yesterday's show was really, really

Listener Plug And Premium Offer

SPEAKER_00 6:23

good with the head of Bolt Marketing. I really enjoyed that one. I was running the backside of the show and clicking everything, and it was really fun to listen to. Well, we'd love to have you on the premium side. We keep on getting more of you guys every day. We're at AgBull Media or AgBull.com. You can find us there with all of our information. We have some free stuff on there. We Smeyer's free for now, but he won't be for long. AgBull Monthly Intel is only $25 a month or $250 annually. I'm Jed Sidwell with Ag Bull Media. Remember, we're a financial channel that loves agriculture. Have a great day.