Soybean futures held early warning for COVID-related economic collapse
URBANA, Ill. – Global financial markets collapsed in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the world. But weeks earlier, soybean futures had already started providing an early warning sign of troubles ahead. Soybean futures were “the canary in the coal mine,” according to a team of agricultural economists from the University of Illinois, who studied soybean, corn, and wheat market trading in early 2020.