Commodity Markets to make over a 52-week time frame. After I chart the various indexes, the chart is overlaid with the weekly close-only price for this year’ s futures contract.
2025 Futures Show Early Movement
Let’ s start with soybeans. Even though the crop is usually harvested after corn, the seasonal chart starts the previous November and runs through the next October, with the current year’ s contract moving into delivery at the end of the period. The November soybean shows a normal seasonal high weekly close the first week of June for both the 5-year index( green line) and 10-year index( blue line). From there, the November futures contract tends to drop 5 %( 5-year) to 6 %( 10-year) through the third weekly close of August.
The 2025 contract( brown line) posted a high weekly close near $ 10.60 the third week of June – close enough to the average based on the“ horseshoes proximity”( close is close enough) – before dropping to a weekly close near $ 10.07 the second week of July. This was a drop of 5 %, in line with its seasonal indexes.
As August began, Nov25 futures had stabilized. Over in December corn, the seasonal studies run from December through November.
The 5-year index( gold line) shows an average high weekly close of 108 % the second week of May and a low weekly close of 95 % the fourth week of August. The 10-year index( purple line) has an average high weekly close of 106 % the second week of June and an average low weekly close of 95 %, also the fourth week of August. The 2025 issue( black line) posted an early high weekly close of $ 4.75 the third week of February and lost about 14 % through its second weekly close of July near $ 4.12.
What to Watch This August
The 2025 contracts are interesting from a seasonal analysis point of view because both November soybeans and December corn covered the average distance over a shorter period of time. Given this, do we assume both contracts could post contraseasonal rallies during August or will the late July rallies be short-lived? We need to keep in mind seasonal analysis is but a guide as to what tends to happen rather than a hard and fast projection of what will happen.
This makes seasonal analysis( along with price distribution and volatility) part of my seven rules on markets, specifically Rule no. 3: Use filters to manage risk.
Given that futures spreads were continuing to grow more bearish during July, I’ m still on the side of both futures contracts spending some of the dog days of summer under pressure. For now, we’ ll see how August plays out.
About the Author
Darin Newsom has been working with markets in general for nearly 40 years, dating back to Black Monday 1987. Over that time, he has worked in local grain elevators, first dumping trucks then as a merchandiser, before becoming a commodity broker and advisor. That eventually led him to DTN where he spent 15 years as the company’ s senior market analyst before going out on his own with Darin Newsom Analysis, Inc.
These days, he also has the title of Senior Analyst for Barchart. Along the way, he has developed his own way of analyzing markets in every sector, always proudly reminding people that he is not an economist.
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