CBOT Closing Comments

Soybeans

July soybeans closed at $10.84, down 49 ½ cents, November beans at $8.92, down 3 cents. The very sharp sell-off on old crop beans continues, with the July/November inverse having almost halved in just a few weeks. US weather conditions look highly favourable for soybean development, encouraging some liquidation and profit-taking ahead of Friday's important stocks and production reports from the USDA. Some reports suggest that China have just about finished buying US soybeans and will use their domestic stocks from now on. Private exporters subsequently reported to the USDA export sales of 180,000 MT of soybeans for delivery to China during the 2009/2010 marketing year.

Corn

July corn closed at $3.39 ¼, up 3 ¼ cents, December at $3.34 ¼, down 1 ½ cents. Corn is attempting to divorce itself from soybeans, and doing quite a good job. Corn is not nearly so overbought, indeed nervous shorts are being tempted to cover sales ahead of Friday's USDA report, after recent big surprises from the USDA they could do worse than cash in their chips now. Trade estimates for 2009/10 carry out average 1.567 with a range of 1.29 to 1.828 billion bushels. Crude oil went for a bath, getting within 2 cents of crashing below $60/barrel, certainly that didn't help corn's cause today.

Wheat

July wheat closed at $4.88 ½, up 3 ½ cents. Egypt bought 175,000 tonnes of US and French wheat, spurning Russian wheat again, prompting ideas that US wheat exports might be about to finally start to pick up. The hot and wet Midwest conditions might be ideal for corn and soybean development, but they are adversely affecting winter wheat harvesting. Deteriorating crops in Canada and Russia are also encouraging a belief that US wheat will also begin to attract more buying interest.