CBOT Closing Comments

Soybeans

May Soybeans closed at USD9.89 ½, up 3 ¾ cents; May Soybean Meal at USD291.30, up USD3.90; May Soybean Oil at USD38.58, down 22 points. Crude oil was higher and the dollar lower, which helped support. Production estimates from South America got tweaked a little higher again this week, but so far farmers there seem fairly reluctant sellers even with record output. China meanwhile are seen importing beans at the rate of 5 MMT/month or more across May and June.

Corn

May Corn futures closed at USD3.66 ¼, up 5 ¾ cents; December Corn futures at USD3.92 ¼, up 8 ½ cents. Outside markets were supportive Friday. The big story of the week has been China buying US corn, we had confirmation from the USDA of sales of 115,000 MT on Wednesday. Rumours continue to circulate that they may have bought more, next Thursday's export sales report might confirm this. Meanwhile corn planting in the US might be as much as 75% done by the end of the weekend. That should maximise yield potential, and keep a lid on prices rising too far.

Wheat

May CBOT Wheat ended at USD4.91 ¾, up 7 ½ cents; May KCBT Wheat at USD5.05 ½, up 8 cents; May MGEX Wheat at USD5.26, up 9 cents. Outside market influences, spillover strength from China buying US corn and pre-weekend and end of month short-covering all helped push wheat higher. Funds still hold a large open short position in wheat, which will continue to leave the market vulnerable to corrective moves even though US wheat is overpriced on the world market. Winter conditions have generally been pretty favourable for US wheat and although acreage is down, yields should be significantly higher than last season.