eCBOT Close/Early Call

eCBOT grains closed higher with March soybeans up 16 1/2 cents, March corn up 4 1/4 cents and March wheat closing up 6 1/4 cents.

Concern over the drought in China has got the wheat market aggitated, with around 10m hectares, or approx 40,000 square miles affected. Apparently your average Chinese peasant farmer isn't too keen on irrigating his crop with prices where they are at the moment.

With China the world's biggest consumer of wheat by far, a crop disaster there would certainly have implications for the global market.

In Argentina, this weeks rain certainly will have helped matters, but it is still too early to say exactly how much damage has been done. Looking further ahead there isn't too much rain in the forecast. In fact to be specific there is none at all until Feb 21st on the website I am using.

Crude oil is back below $40 at $39.64/barrel, that may weight a little.

US jobs numbers just released this afternoon were very poor, even worse than expected, with 598,000 jobs going in January. That was the most since 1974 and takes US unemployment to 7.6 percent. That might prompt a bit of a run on the dollar, adding strength to the grains.

Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: Corn Up 3-5c, Wheat Up 4-6c, Soy Up 10-15c.