Market Analyst Reveals Key Dates and Strategies to Maximize Your Corn and Soybean Profits in 2025

Al Kluis, managing director of Kluis Commodity Advisors, said he expects seasonal marketing will work for farmers in 2025. 

At the 2025 Commodity Classic conference in Denver this week, Kluis discussed what happened in the corn and soybean markets in 2024, as well as his recommendations for 2025. He emphasized the importance of seasonal marketing (selling grain in the spring and summer and avoiding the fall) and making several small sales into rallies rather than making a few large sales. 

“Time is just as important as price,” he said during one of his two presentations at the event. “If you work with me, you’re going to find that we make a lot of sale recommendations between the middle of April and the middle of June, and occasionally hang on to July. We will avoid sales between August and October. And so I have to be honest, I don’t ever hit the highs, but my God, I’m not going to have you sell at the lows.” 

Kluis provided attendees with several dates to keep an eye out for a change in the trend of the market. 

 “There are three trends to the market,” he said. “You go up, you go down, and you go sideways. And once this current collapse in price is over, don’t expect things to necessarily go ripping higher. Expect a base to be built. Expect a soybean daily trading range of 5–8¢ [and 3–4¢ for corn].”

Kluis also provided the audience with some factors that can impact the trend, such as crop conditions in South America, USDA projections in reports like the upcoming Prospective Plantings report, and hedge fund activity. He said increased hedge fund activity in grain markets has led to increased volatility and risk. Making several small sales as markets rally instead of a few large ones is a way of managing this.

“When you look at my track record … you don’t see one or two sales of 50%,” he said. “You see sales of 10%, 10%, 10%. It lets you sleep at night. It generates some cash. I had a lot of second, and even had a few third-generation customers walk up today. One common characteristic that those customers have, is that they sell and never look back…. They sell, it goes higher, they sell some more.”

For this point in the year, Kluis recommended farmers have their 2024/2025 corn crop 80% sold and have their 2025/2026 crop 20% hedged. For soybeans, he recommended being 60% sold for 2024/2025 and 20% hedged for the new crop. 

“I don’t care if you’ve got delayed planting in your county or your state, you better close your eyes and get cash corn and new crop sold anyway,” he said. “The latest I want to have inventory … is the week of June 20. Storing corn into August has been a disaster in marketing and financial decisions.”