Welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving.
Commodity markets are closing out May under broad pressure, and crude oil is the common thread. Corn futures are down seven to nine cents at midday, with the slide driven largely by a two dollar and eight cent drop in crude, as money flows out of risk assets ahead of the weekend and traders eye a potential US-Iran agreement that could reshape energy supply expectations.
That same crude-driven pressure is hitting the wheat complex hard, with Chicago soft red winter contracts down thirteen cents across most maturities. The combination of falling energy prices and position-squaring before the weekend close has traders stepping back, and the geopolitical overhang around any Iran deal is keeping fresh buyers on the sideline.
Meanwhile, live cattle futures are taking a separate kind of hit, off between ninety-seven cents and one dollar sixty-five at midday. Cash trade did pick up Friday at two hundred fifty-six dollars in both the South and North, but the Fed Cattle Exchange online auction moved only forty head out of one thousand and eight offered, signaling that demand conviction is thin and packers hold the leverage heading into the weekend.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
