Corn Up Nearly 5¢ | Tuesday, April 1, 2025

A little past 9 a.m. CT, May corn was up 4¾¢ at $4.62 per bushel.

May soybeans were up 10¢ at $10.24¾ per bushel.

May wheat contracts were also higher. CBOT wheat was up 3¢ at $5.40 per bushel. KC wheat was up 1¾¢ at $5.58¾. Minneapolis wheat was up 4¼¢ at $5.96¼.

“It’s “April Fools Day” today, which is why President Trump said that he would not announce his reciprocal tariff plan today,” said Arlan Suderman, chief commodity economist at StoneX. “Instead, he will announce it tomorrow, on what he is calling ‘Liberation Day.’ We should get information from the White House setting up the justification for what will happen tomorrow, which could drive some market action, depending on how it is interpreted. Yet, caution will likely be the key today, ahead of tomorrow’s reciprocal tariff announcements. Stock futures came under pressure again overnight as traders position for those announcements. …

“The Trump Administration told us that reciprocal tariffs will simply put a tariff on each trading partner that we do business with that matches what they currently charge us, for the purpose of getting them to negotiate it down. As such, the expectation has been that we would get a detailed list of countries with different tariffs attached to them. President Trump stated that he has signed off on the plan that will be unveiled tomorrow. The markets reacted negatively overnight to a media report that the plan has tariffs of ‘about 20%’ on most of the goods that we import into the States. That had the sound of more of a flat tariff in the minds of traders than it did a country-specific reciprocal tariff. There are more than 100 countries that don’t charge us a tariff, but most of our major trading partners do so.

“Some sources close to the White House also state that the Administration is considering a tax dividend or refund from a portion of the revenue collected by the tariffs to offset the inflationary aspects of the tariffs, while also helping to stimulate the economy. It will be critical that Trump do something to win back the confidence of the consumer in the weeks ahead, if he’s going to succeed in restructuring the economy as he desires.”

June live cattle were up 15¢ at $203.80 per hundredweight (cwt) a little after 9 a.m. CT. May feeder cattle were up 63¢ at $285.13 per cwt. June lean hogs were down 3¢ at $95.25 per cwt.

May crude oil was up 20¢ at $71.68 per barrel.

The U.S. Dollar Index June contract was up to 103.93.

June S&P 500 futures were down 36 points. June Dow futures were down 390 points.

Published: 9:38 a.m. CT