By Joe Stonor

A roundup of key agricultural commodity markets for the week of May 18-22 by Dow Jones Newswires in Barcelona.

GRAINS & OILSEEDS:

Grains rallied after the White House said that China would buy $17 billion worth of U.S. agriculture through 2028.

A summit between the two countries last week was initially met with disappointment by markets in the absence of a deal announcement. And despite grains recovering Monday, investors will continue to look for detail on the U.S.-China agreement, with some concerned by vague wording from the White House.

"The problem is the language is so obscurely worded," said Naomi Blohm of Total Farm Marketing. Blohm said the statement's wording didn't mention specific crops like soybeans and corn, and could mean any agricultural good.

The weaker macroeconomic environment also weighed on agricultural commodities, analysts at Peak Trading Research said.

Investors will look to minutes from the last meeting of the Federal Reserve's Open Markets Committee, set for release Wednesday. The notes will be parsed for clues on the Fed's rate-setting direction in what was Jerome Powell's last meeting as chair.

Concerns are mounting around the likelihood of a major El Nino weather event later this year, with the U.S. National Weather Service predicting an 82% chance that the system will emerge between May and July.

An El Nino event would be positive for corn and soybean production, Peak Trading Research analysts said.

Speculative traders pulled back from grains last week, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Commitments of Traders report.

Funds continue to hold large and vulnerable bets on agricultural commodities that could lead to sharp downturns in prices if investors look to exit their positions en masse, the Research analysts added.

Wheat futures rose 4% to $6.61 a bushel in Chicago in European afternoon trade Monday. Corn futures rose 4.2% to $4.75 a bushel while soybeans were 3.2% higher at $12.15 a bushel.

SOFT COMMODITIES:

Cocoa sold off sharply, handing back gains made over the last two weeks. Prices spiked earlier this month as traders moved to cover short positions and concerns around the impact of El Nino mounted, rising above $4,700.

But prices fell sharply Monday, with cocoa down 5.85% in New York to $3,770 a metric ton on further apparent signals of strong cocoa supply from West Africa adding to already existing global supply surpluses.

Coffee also slid, with New York futures dropping 0.9% to $2.46 a pound, while sugar futures were 0.6% lower at 14.71 cents a pound.

Write to Joe Stonor at josephmichael.stonor@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 18, 2026 12:32 ET (16:32 GMT)

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