eCBOT Close, Early Call

The overnights closed firmer with beans around 5-6 cents higher, and with corn and wheat each up around a couple of cents.

The dollar is down a little and crude up a tad, but again thus far it is shaping up to be another relatively non-event. Already the trade appears to be content to wait and see what next week's USDA numbers have to say.

Before that we have tomorrow's weekly export sales report to maybe provide some much needed guidance.

Wheat export sales have picked up somewhat of late, which might see ending stocks reduced slightly from we have been expecting. Corn stocks are also pretty much universally expected to be lowered.

The USDA are now towards the upper end of the range of South American soybean production numbers at 66 MMT for Brazil and 53 MMT for Argentina, so there may be a possibility that we will see those get trimmed a little to - especially Brazil.

US wheat production prospects are mixed, with heavy El Nino rains in Texas likely to yield bumper output there, but conditions elsewhere are less than ideal.

Extreme wetness looks like being an issue again this spring in in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, South Dakota, Missouri and Arkansas. That could have a negative impact on corn and spring wheat plantings.

Crude oil inventory data from the Energy Information Administration later today may show crude and distillates stocks increasing by around 1.5 and 1 million barrels each, respectively.

Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: corn called 1 to 2 higher; soybeans called 2 to 5 higher; wheat called 1 to 2 higher.