AG Squawk AM 8/5/2026 with Jed Sidwell | Ag Markets Morning Brief

We run through a fast morning snapshot of livestock, grain, and macro markets, then zoom in on the two forces shaping the day: weather risk and shifting expectations for yield and weights. We also connect the S&P 500 surge and key economic reports to how outside markets can still tug on agriculture pricing.

• green close across live cattle, feeder cattle, and lean hogs
• quick futures check on new crop corn, soybeans, and Chicago wheat
• improving Corn Belt soil moisture alongside growing flood risk
• Southern Plains heat building with hot nights adding stress
• StoneX August survey calling for 184.8 bpa corn and 16.6B bushels
• how modern corn genetics can outperform ugly conditions
• record-high fed cattle carcass weights starting to edge lower
• heat, shrink, and seasonal cattle mix as weight drivers
• S&P 500 and Dow futures pushing higher after a strong week
• today’s economic calendar and why it matters for ag

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Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Lineup

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Good morning and welcome to AgSquawk AM. Jed Sidwell with Ag Bull Media. We're a financial channel that loves agriculture. Today, on this fine Wednesday, we're going to talk about Stone X's August survey, cattle weights, and what's going on over there in the stock market. We'll get to all of that here in a bit.

Livestock Board Recap And Quotes

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Looking at the livestock markets yesterday, a green day across the board. Live cattle closed at $227.90 up a buck and 18 cents. Feeder cattle were up $3.60 at $3.46.150. And Lean Hogs were at $84,350 up $1.18. On to the weather discussion. Actually, hold on. I'll go back and I will quote the markets live here from plus $500. T4 trading software from plus $500 is what we use. They're sponsors of the show. We're always happy to use their services. As we look right now, Dece Corn, new crop, is at $4.59 and a half. Soybeans September or $11.49. And Chicago wheat is at $6.39.

Corn Belt Moisture And Flood Risk

SPEAKER_00 1:33

On to the weather discussion for today. Corn belt soil moisture keeps on improving, but the flood risk is the concern that we get with that. Recent overnight rains of two to three inches have been kind of the norm through Iowa and Nebraska in spots. There's starting to be some corn that's underwater over there. Southern Plains heat intensifies sharply starting August 9th. Temperatures there will run 10 to 12 degrees above the normal temps, with consistently being over 100 degrees. The kicker there is that it's not looking like it's going to cool down overnight. So say your prayers for the folks that live in Kansas and Oklahoma and Texas. The grain market discussion, Stone X's survey pegged corn at 184.8 bushels an acre and 16.6 billion bushels above USDA's July number,

StoneX Yield Survey And Seed Genetics

SPEAKER_00 2:26

despite the crop rating falling 12 points compared to a year ago. I'll pop this up big one time. You can take a screenshot if you want to compare corn and soybeans in your area. But like we've been talking about, the genetics of these corn, this new corn seed is just absolutely phenomenal. They're highly resilient, they're highly productive, and we're doing more with less acres, even when we see poor crop conditions. Livestock market discussion for today, comprehensive fed cattle carcass weights. Mr. Mike Sands popped this chart in our group chat this morning, and I thought it was worth bringing up. It's like what we talked about yesterday in our Fat Tuesday show. If you didn't get the Fat Tuesday show

Carcass Weights Dip And Heat Stress

SPEAKER_00 3:16

this week, it's because it's on our premium side. Over at Agbull.com, $25 or $250 annually. You get a plethora of things. Even if you're not interested at the cattle market, I completely get it. Completely get it. You get text updates, morning summaries, closes of where the markets were at. All of Weesmeyer's content is on there for free, but at some point it'll be on the premium side. We have up so much stuff that we put up over there. The the video I do with Tom Leffler every week, one of my absolute favorites, it's up there. Go ahead and go on over to the premium side at AgBull.com. Well, this slide, like we like I said, similar to what we Mr. Mike Sands and I talked about, the carcass weights of cattle are record high but recently, but they've started to go down just slightly. And what's the reason for that? We've feeding cattle for a longer time than ever. But at the same time, uh we're we're having these carcass weights get slightly, slightly smaller. And I do think it is because of this heat. When we transport cattle this time of year, we have a higher shrink. Not to mention, without some of the benefit of having higher growth black-hided cattle this time of year on feed that we often try and get out of the gate earlier. Some of our less productive cattle are probably we're probably killing right now where it's so hot. But I thought that was really interesting to see. Obviously, several ticks higher than where we were years ago, but we're starting to come down just ever so slightly. The SP 500 and Dow Futures tick higher after a record day on Wall Street was the newsline from CNBC and Trade the News. Trade the News is a sponsor of the show. If you haven't paid attention to the stock market recently, man, they've been on a

Stock Market Surge And Outside Impact

SPEAKER_00 5:06

heater over there. I'll pop this up for our chart of the day. Tommy jokes that over a long, long period of time that you know stocks just go from the bottom left to the top right. If you look at this chart, that's just about a week-long chart there. They've done that the past week. That's the SP futures contract there. Absolutely huge amount of gain that they've seen over the past week. Opposite of what's been happening over there in the energy space, when outside markets have this much volume, even though this is kind of the slow time of year in the ag markets, it still has an effect on what we do over here. The economic calendar for today, the MBA mortgage application comes out at 6, came out already at 6 a.m. The ADP employment change comes out at 7.15 as I'm recording this live. The SP Global PMI is at 8 45 a.m. And the EIA Energy Stocks comes out at 9 30. Well, that's all I have for you today. Make sure and go and follow us on our socials. And I know I say this every day, but we put up a lot of

Economic Calendar To Watch

SPEAKER_00 6:11

stuff, especially on TikTok. We try and pull the highlights from every show, some really interesting things that all of our guests have to say. Um, so if you you're if you go through and scroll through our TikToks, like, hey, that sounds like an interesting discussion. You can then follow that up uh on one of our other platforms to watch the whole episode. That's all I have for you today. Thank you for watching and thank you for listening. I'm Jed Sidwell with AgBull Media. We're a financial channel that loves agriculture. Have a great day.