eCBOT Close, Early Call

The overnights closed mixed with wheat 3-5 cents higher, corn up 1-2 cents and beans around unchanged levels. Nothing much to get too excited about there, it's been a roller coaster ride this week with panic selling on Monday seen by many as a buying opportunity.

For soybeans China is still the major market influence, taking more than half of the USDA's weekly export sales yesterday. The Chinese government have said that they will continue to support domestic prices by increasing it's purchases from farmers from 6 MMT to 7.25 MMT, which may stimulate even further import activity from crushers, despite high stock levels.

There are some who think that Chinese demand is a massive pack of cards waiting to collapse, and they could be right.

The WHO has officially now stopped calling swine flu swine flu, it's just flu now. Mexican fatality and hospital admission rates are falling.

My stepdaughter (aged 12) came home from school yesterday saying that there were 20 confirmed cases in nearby York and that schools there were closing left right & centre and that we were surely next, what would we do if we all caught it, everyone at school is really worried etc.

Of course it's all a load of baloney, but I guess that school kids believe all this stuff.

The Egyptians appear to be using the scare to con the masses into a nationwide pig-cull, much to the angst of the pig-keeping Christian minority.

Spring wheat planting in North Dakota just can't seem to get going. They've had an inch of rain this week, and with temperatures forecast to do no better than nudge into the 60's over the weekend soggy fields aren't going to be doing much drying out just yet.

Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: Corn called steady to 2 higher; soybeans called flat to 1 higher; wheat called 3 to 6 higher.