Early Vibe

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 09:16 | Categorized as

04/03/11 -- It's been a very quiet week, let's hope that demand picks up a little as we get into the month, although currently I don't hold out a great deal of hope. Domestically, end user interest in anything is very thin on the ground.

Japan has announced the purchase of 150,000 MT of Brazilian corn overnight. US corn it would seem has priced itself out of the equation at current two year highs.

The Halifax say that UK house prices fell by 0.9% last month, and are down 2.8% year on year. That's worse than analysts were expecting (0.4% and 2.5% respectively). That hardly strengthens the case for raising interest rates, which may give the pound a bit of a wobble this morning.

Striking workers at the under construction Vivergo bioethanol plant at Saltend returned to work yesterday after employees "unfairly" picked out for redundancy were reinstated, according to my sources.

EU soft wheat exports are running 16% ahead of last season at 13.8 MMT as of March 1st, although the pace has slowed considerably from earlier in the season - before Christmas we were 36% ahead of 2009/10 levels. Euro strength and dollar weakness has hit demand, so too has the ever-widening differential between EU and US wheat prices.

Argy workers are still on strike at two terminals in Rosario, although operations are continuing at other facilities in the port. Overall only around 16% of the nation's crushing capacity is affected according to Reuters.

Luxury handbag and silk scarf maker Hermes saw net income in 2010 rise 46% to EUR422m after the artist formerly known as Prince popped into one of their shops.

Rumoured to be considering a public floatation, Glencore announced tidy little profits of USD3.79 billion yesterday, up 40%. Ensus might want to mention that one next time they are haggling over the price of wheat!

Ukrainian customs procedures (lack of adequate bribes) are delaying importation of grain and sugar-beet seeds for the spring sowing campaign, say the Ukraine equivalent of the NFU. That may cut this year's grain harvest to around 40 MMT from early hopes of 45-47 MMT, they warn. They are Ukrainian though, so they're probably lying.

And finally a bloke with what has to be one of the strangest farm-related fetishes going has been at it again it would seem. He is from Devon, mind: Your sister is your mother, your uncle is you brother etc