Seasonal Analysis shows us the cyclical waves over a 12-month period (calendar year, marketing year, other), a reflection of the ebb and flow of supply and demand.
The second weekly close of June (last Friday, June 12) was the seasonal peak for the National HRW Wheat Index.
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The HRW futures market has some solid seasonal patterns before the Krampus Countdown begins late in the fall.
My friend Michelle from Italy sent me a message recently, to discuss his take on the HRW winter wheat market, aka Poverty Grass, aka The Cockroach of the Grains Sector. To begin with, my friend titled his message “Let's talk about fundamentals”, something I look forward to in this day and age of algorithm trade driven largely on misinformation from not necessarily the Truth Social media posts creating headlines. Michele talked about HRW's seasonal tendencies, with the July issue coming under pressure heading into delivery as “Rule 6 closes the game”. (Recall my Market Rule #6 says, “Fundamentals win in the end”. This idea has been tested of late, but I still believe in it.) My friend was wondering what the longer-term seasonal pattern was, spanning the gap between early summer harvest and the start of the Krampus Countdown (Don't be long wheat in December). It's a timely question given what both the 5-year and 10-year tendencies of the National HRW Wheat Index.
Some housekeeping. My seasonal studies differ from nearly everyone else in that I create seasonal indexes rather than using flat price over time. Why? A couple reasons:
First, I'm interested in weekly percent changes. I can find these by finding the average price of weekly closes over a set period of time, averaging all the weekly closes, then dividing each week to create an index shown in percent. It's not as complicated as it sounds.
Second, the change in price distribution over time can make seasonal analysis difficult. For example, if Market A had a historic price range between 100 and 200, and now found itself trading between 300 and 400, the previous track record would look like a flat line rather than the cyclical waves we are looking for in seasonal analysis.
Third, my seasonal analysis national average cash prices are built on Indexes with a longer history, so may not be what you find on your quote screen.
With that, let's look at the HRW markets, cash and futures:
National HRW Index ($CRWI)
The Index tends to post a high weekly close the second week of June (last Friday), then trending down through the fourth weekly close of August. The 10-year index (blue line) shows an average loss of 13% The 5-year index (red line) shows an average loss of 15% The Index was priced last Friday (June 12) at $5.78, up about 1% from the previous week’s $5.74 and putting the downside range for a low weekly close between $5.05 (10-year) and $4.90 (5-year)July HRW (KEN26)
July HRW tends to post a high weekly close the second week of May before trending down through the last weekly close of June The 10-year index (blue line) shows an average loss of 9% The 5-year index (red line) shows an average loss of 21% The July 2026 futures contract (green line) posted a high weekly close of $6.9450 the first week of May, putting the downside target for the last week of June between $6.32 (10-year) and $5.49 (5-year) The July futures contract closed last Friday at $6.3450, with the previous week’s settlement at $6.2075September HRW ((KEU26)
September HRW tends to post a high weekly close the second week of May before trending down through fourth week of August The 10-year index (blue line) shows an average loss of 14% The 5-year index (red line) shows an average loss of 18% The September 2026 futures contract (green line) has a high weekly close of $7.0650 the first week of May, putting the downside target range for the low weekly close between $6.0750 (10-year) and $5.7925 (5-year ) September closed last Friday $6.4075December HRW (KEZ26)
The December futures contract tends to post a high weekly close the second week of May before trending down through last week of August The 10-year index (blue line) shows an average loss of 15% The 5-year index (red line) shows an average loss of 20% The December 2026 futures contract (green line) has a high weekly close of $7.2125 the first week of May putting the range for a low weekly close between $6.15 (10-year) and $5.75 (5-year) Dec26 closed last Friday at $6.54The Bottom line is there is there the HRW market still has downside risk/potential from a Seasonal Analysis point of view.
On the date of publication, Darin Newsom did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.