The last full trading week of August closed with grains on tears and cattle giving back some of the week's earlier bounce. Wheat posted its biggest weekly gain in years on Black Sea fear. Corn touched a fresh three-year high. Soybeans jumped more than 20 cents Friday as China kept loading new-crop beans. Cattle, meanwhile, faded on weak cash trade and policy news as the market looked toward September. Here is the straight talk for the week ending August 28, 2026, and the look ahead into the first days of September.
Cattle
Fri Aug 28 close: Oct live cattle $211.72/cwt, down $1.20. Feeder Sep $320.90/cwt, down $1.55
What Happened
CME cattle futures finished the week lower after a technical bounce midweek faded. On Friday, August 28, August live cattle settled down $1.05 at $219.25 per hundredweight, the October contract lost $1.20 to close at $211.72, and December settled at $213.72, down $1.07. Feeder cattle finished $1.55 lower at $320.90 for September, putting the September contract down $8.12 on the week. It was a choppy, give-and-take week for the complex.
The cash market was light and soft. Live deals were marked around $222 in the South for the week, about $3 under the prior week's weighted average, while dressed deals in the North were around $345, roughly $10 lower. The CME Feeder Cattle Index eased 67 cents on August 27 to $332.80. Boxed beef stayed elevated through late August, with the Choice cutout around $389.93 per hundredweight and Select at $363.74 on the most recent USDA print.
The earlier part of the week saw a rebound off the post-grilling-season drift, helped by firmer midweek cash trade and a technically oversold board. Market analysts flagged the tight herd left in the wake of the August 13 Tyson plant closures as the longer-term driver, but short-term direction came down to policy and packing details. Headlines about the administration broadening the right of processors to process food, along with news that Cargill's Fort Morgan plant was restarting and talk of the screwworm situation in Chihuahua, all moved the tape. Weak cash through the end of the week pulled futures back from the early gains.
Next 48 Hours Outlook
Cattle head into September cautious. The cash market is the number to watch above all else. If dressed steers hold in the upper $340s or live trade firms back near $222, futures can steady near current levels. If cash keeps drifting, expect October to test the low-$210 area. Policy headlines around processing capacity will keep moving the board, and the Cargill Fort Morgan restart plus the screwworm situation are the near-term supply risks most analysts have their eyes on. The tight herd is still the long-term story, but nobody is calling anything decisive while cash trades thin and light.
Corn
Dec contract: $5.36 1/2/bu, up 3¢ Friday. Touched a three-year high above $5.40 intraday
What Happened
December corn closed up 3 cents Friday to $5.36 1/2 per bushel after touching a fresh three-year high above $5.40 on the day. Corn was up about 5.5% on the week. The rally has spilled straight through the $5.00 resistance that had been so hard to clear earlier in the summer, and it is not done.
Three things are driving it. First, the supply story. The Pro Farmer Crop Tour trimmed the U.S. corn yield estimate well below the USDA's August number, and USDA itself has already lowered its production view. Second, the export book is strong, with new-crop U.S. sales running near record pace and consistent buying out of Mexico and other key markets. Third, and importantly, wheat's Black Sea rally is pulling corn up with it. When the world is short grain at the source, every feed grain catches a bid. Corn has been a direct beneficiary of that geopolitics premium.
Weather across much of the Corn Belt has let the crop finish without major stress, though the drier western end of the belt is still being watched in the final ear-fill stretch. The funds have been buyers on breaks, and consecutive closes above $5.00 have brought fresh technical buying off the sidelines.
Next 48 Hours Outlook
Corn is above $5.36 and near contract highs, and the next 48 hours hinge on the Black Sea and the export desk. If wheat keeps its war premium, corn rides along. USDA's weekly export sales and crop progress reports land early this week, and a strong corn sales week, especially to Mexico, keeps the momentum. December resistance sits just above the $5.36 to $5.40 zone; a clear break there opens more room. The risk is a geopolitical headline pulling the premium out of wheat and dragging corn with it. Profit-taking after a big week is normal, but the underlying supply-and-demand story is supportive until a USDA report says otherwise. The September WASDE is the big checkpoint on the calendar.
Soybeans
Nov contract: ~$12.88/bu, up 20¢ Friday. Touched a near-three-year high
What Happened
November soybeans jumped 20 cents Friday to close around $12.88 per bushel, closing more than 20 cents higher on the day and touching a near-three-year high. It was the strongest finish of the week for the bean complex, and demand is the whole story.
New-crop U.S. soybean sales jumped to nearly 2.5 million metric tons in the latest week as China loaded up, and USDA announced a private sale of 333,000 metric tons of soybeans to China for the 2026/27 marketing year, plus 100,000 metric tons of soybean meal to the Netherlands. New-crop soybean sales are running well over double last year's pace. China remains the engine, and the buying shows no sign of letting up.
On the supply side, the Pro Farmer Crop Tour pegged the U.S. soybean yield in the low-50s range, with pod counts showing real losses in drought-stressed pockets of the western Corn Belt and the Delta. Combined with the strong Chinese demand pull, the trade is pricing beans tighter than USDA's balance sheet shows on paper. Funds and end users have both been buyers, and beans have gone from oversold to overbought in one late-August swing.
Next 48 Hours Outlook
Beans have momentum heading into the week. The November contract near $12.85 to $12.88 faces the next technical test at the $13.00 area, and a break through that opens more upside fast. China is the wild card, and another USDA flash sale announcement would push the board higher quickly. The weekly export sales report early this week will show whether the buying binge is cooling. Watch the western Corn Belt and Delta forecast too; continued heat and dryness in the final pod-fill stretch adds a weather premium. As long as China keeps buying and the weather stays warm and dry where it hurts, beans sit in friendly territory.
Wheat
Dec SRW contract: 784¢/bu, up 3.1% Friday (touched 790¢). Up 12.1% on the week
What Happened
Wheat was the week's headline act. December Chicago SRW wheat settled 3.1% higher Friday at 784 cents per bushel after touching 790 cents intraday, the highest level since February 2023. Wheat gained 12.1% on the week, its biggest weekly advance in years. This is a straight-up geopolitical rally, and there is nothing subtle about it.
The Black Sea crisis is the entire story. Russia rejected efforts toward a ceasefire and renewed threats to escalate attacks on Kyiv and on Ukraine's export infrastructure. Tit-for-tat strikes have hit both sides' export ports and commercial shipping, including ships bound for Russia's Black Sea grain facilities. Ukraine's agriculture ministry projects its grain exports will fall by more than half, and the two countries together account for more than a quarter of world wheat trade. When a quarter of the world's supply is tangled up in a shooting war, the market pays whatever it takes for an alternative.
The supply picture was already tightening before the conflict flared. USDA has cut Russian and Ukrainian export forecasts, and European wheat production came in below earlier estimates after heat stressed crops across the region. The war premium has now been layered back on top of already-tight fundamentals, and the result is a market making fresh multi-year highs every session.
Next 48 Hours Outlook
Wheat is in breakout mode and the next 48 hours come down entirely to headlines out of the Black Sea. More escalation means more upside, and this market has shown it can gap limit higher on news. Friday's export sales report will show whether world buyers are shifting purchases to U.S. wheat, which would layer demand on top of the fear. The flip side cuts just as hard: any concrete ceasefire or grain corridor deal would take the air out of this rally in a hurry. Watch for a sharp, fast reversal if diplomacy produces anything real. Until it does, the trend is higher and the risk premiums stay.
What This Means for
The Bottom Line
Grains closed August with fire under them: wheat up a dozen percent on the week on Black Sea fear, corn at a three-year high, and beans riding relentless Chinese demand. Cattle is the sore thumb, fading on thin cash and policy news even with the tight long-term herd story intact. For Wisconsin farm and land sellers, the grain signals are running clearly in your favor heading into September, and the profit-driven operator is alive and looking.
I watch these markets every day because they tell me what the buyers I work with are thinking. If you want an honest read on what your farm or land is worth in this market, give me a call. I will walk your ground with you and tell you straight what I see.
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This update lives under our Cattle and Cash Crops section, where you can find deeper guides on cattle property, crop land, and what Wisconsin rural land is really worth.