Chicago Close

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 09:02 | Categorized as

05/05/11 -- Soybeans: May 11 soybeans closed at USD13.19 3/4, down 30 3/4 cents; Nov soybeans closed at USD13.06 3/4, down 31 3/4 cents; May 11 soybean meal closed at USD342.70, down USD4.90; May 11 soybean oil closed at 55.36, down 140 points. It was exit day on commodities, with NYMEX crude falling under USD100/barrel to a close at USD99.80, down 8.6% on the day to levels not seen since the Japanese earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck. Funds sold an estimated 7,000 lot of soybeans on the day. Weekly export sales did nothing to lend support coming in at just 21,000 MT, the second lowest weekly total since July 2005. Chinese demand certainly seems to have gone away, with this week's shipments also well below what is required to meet the USDA's export target for 2010/11.

Corn: May 11 corn closed at USD7.05, down 21 1/2 cents; Dec 11 corn closed at USD6.55 3/4, down 9 1/2 cents. Even corn couldn't but resist succumbing to heavy outside weakness despite the bullish late planting storyline. Weekly export sales were also disappointing at 284,200 MT versus expectations of 350-650,000 MT. All those sales were old crop meaning that we had no new crop sales at all this week for either corn or soybeans. That's the first time that has happened since before Christmas. Shipments were better at 798,500 MT but even that was 19% below the average for the past 4 weeks. Funds were estimated to have unloaded a further 15,000 corn contracts on the day as their resolve gets tested.

Wheat: May 11 CBOT wheat closed at USD7.22 1/2, down 18 1/2 cents; May 11 KCBT wheat closed at USD8.48, down 19 3/4 cents; May 11 MGEX wheat closed at USD9.06, down 17 cents. Like corn, wheat couldn't manage to swim against a tide of exodus fund money despite also having a bullish story of it's own. Export sales were in line with expectations at 549,600 MT whilst the Kansas wheat tour and Oklahoma Wheat Commission both estimate wheat yields in their respective states down sharply in 2011. The recent words of Société Générale and Goldman Sachs warning of an imminent oil-led commodities collapse are suddenly starting to look quite prophetic.