Early Call On CBOT

The overnight grains closed mostly firmer with beans up around 4-5 cents, wheat 2-3 higher and corn flat to 1c lower.

The dollar is a tad lower and crude oil a little firmer. US weekly jobless claims fell 10,000 as expected.

The usual Thursday export sales report from the USDA is delayed until tomorrow after Monday's Memorial Day holiday.

The trade will be scrutinising that for further possible Chinese buying of corn and beans. The first consignment of US corn heading for China in four years set sail yesterday apparently. It will be three weeks or so before we can be 100% sure that there won't be any problems at customs when it arrives.

The winter wheat harvest is underway in Texas and southern Oklahoma, early reports say yields are pretty good (see here for some field reports).

It will be interesting to see what the field reports from Kansas say once the harvest begins there in a couple of week after much talk of fungal diseases lately.

US wheat set fresh contract lows last night, but could fall further as it is still uncompetitive on the world export stage with north African buyers.

Egypt passed on US and Canadian wheat again today, buying 120,000 MT of Russian and 60,000 MT of French wheat.

US soybean planting is in line with normal at 74% done as of last Sunday. Further heavy rains across large parts of the Midwest this week may see planting progress not improve too much from that in Monday night's USDA report.

Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: corn called mixed; soybeans called 3 to 5 higher; wheat called 1 to 2 higher.