Welcome to Markets Desk, here's what's moving today.
Grain markets pulled back across the board Thursday as traders positioned defensively ahead of Friday's USDA report. Chicago soft red winter wheat fell as much as five and a quarter cents, with Kansas City hard red winter and Minneapolis spring wheat posting similar losses. The report day caution was clear — nobody wanted to carry risk into the number.
Corn followed the same script, with futures slipping up to two cents on the day and the national cash price settling near four dollars sixty-two and three quarters. Export sales came in at roughly seven hundred sixty-nine thousand metric tons for the week, a figure that offered little support against the broader pre-report hesitation weighing on the complex.
Shifting to footwear, Bank of America flagged a structural problem at Nike — the company flooded the market with retro Air Jordan releases, eroding the scarcity that made those shoes a cultural event. Nike controls roughly forty percent of the global athletic footwear market, but when everything is available, nothing feels special, and that premium pricing power quietly walks out the door.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
