Deere reported third-quarter net income of $1.379 billion Thursday, up from $1.289 billion a year earlier, as net sales and revenues rose five percent to $12.608 billion. The company raised the low end of its full-year forecast to between $4.75 billion and $5.00 billion. [1]

Then came the sentence traders were waiting for. "We continue to believe 2026 will mark the bottom of the current ag equipment cycle," said John May, Deere's chairman and chief executive, citing order-book trends that reinforce the call. [1] He described stable U.S. market conditions alongside softer ones in Brazil and Europe — which is one way an earnings release can describe a countryside. Shares closed up about six percent. [2]

The gap between the call and the customer is where this story lives. In the boardroom, bottoming is arithmetic: used inventories clearing, order books filling, the trough dated and priced. In farm country it is weather, fuel, tariffs, and auctions where used iron changes hands for less than its paint is worth. Both can be true in the same quarter; only one of them files with the SEC. [1][2]

The cycle has been called before, early, by men with spreadsheets. This time the caller builds the tractors, which means Deere has put its own production schedule behind the forecast. The fields will vote next spring. [1]

-- LUCIA VEGA, São Paulo