eCBOT Close, Early Call

In overnight trade March corn was down 3 cents, March soybeans ended 6 1/4 cents lower and March CBOT wheat was down 7 1/2 cents.

Crude oil is showing little change, yesterday's stocks data showing a rise of 4.1 million barrels last week is undeniably bearish. However news of yet another Nigerian facility attack is keeping the market nervous.

The dollar is firmer once again which will add some downwards pressure.

Weekly export sales for last week were much larger than the trade expected for corn, at 833,400 MT, compared to the 300-700,000 MT anticipated.

For soybeans sales were 370,400 MT of combined old and new crop business. That was a little above expectations of 200-350,000 MT. Again sales for old crop were a marketing year low, China bought most of the new crop (188,000 MT).

Wheat export sales were very poor at only 104,100 MT against expectations of 250-500,000 MT. Physical exports of 472,700 MT just about keep the USDA's full marketing year target on track.

More talk of Brazilian yields coming in lower than anticipated seems to indicate that some estimates of 68 MMT were indeed "pie in the sky". Still a crop of around 64-65 MMT is certainly not to be sneezed at.

Asian rust problems are also emerging in Argentina I hear.

Japan bought 132,000 MT of wheat in its usual weekly tender, some 65,000 MT of that was US origin.

We can probably look for some pre-weekend and pre-USDA positioning over the next couple of sessions.

Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: corn called 1 to 3 lower; soybeans called 4 to 6 lower; wheat called 6 to 8 lower.