Morning Ramblings

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 09:53 | Categorized as

04/10/11 -- Eurozone finance ministers have decided to delay the decision on whether to hand over the next EUR8 billion of bailout funds to debt-stricken Greece. Whether that is tied to the announcement over the weekend that the Greeks will noy hit their deficit target at the end of the year is unclear.

What is clear though is that this whole circus is now going to be allowed to rumble on into November. Greece had initially said that it needed the money in October to avoid a default. Now it appears to be indicating that due to some cash generated from a car boot sale it may be able to get through to November, but it really does need the money then what with Christmas coming and everything.

European stock markets are understandably unimpressed with the FSTE100 down more than 2% below the 5,000 mark for the first time since yesterday! The well-named French CAC40 is down 2.3% and the German DAX down 2.75%.

London wheat has is trading easier again, down GBP2.25/tonne on front month Nov and GBP1.25 lower on Nov12. Paris wheat is EUR1.25-2.00/tonne weaker and Paris rapeseed falls EUR3.50-5.75/tonne in early trade. The overnight Globex market sees wheat, corn and beans all down around 5-7 cents.

The Russian Grain Union sees wheat production there this season at 55 MMT (up 33%), with barley output at 16-17 MMT (around double the 8.3 MMT produced in 2010) and the corn crop also twice last year's total at 6 MMT.

Wheat availability in Australia for 2011/12 will be record large due to the high volume of carry-in from the 2010/11 marketing year, according to Emerald Group Australia. They currently estimate the crop at 24.5 MMT, although other forecasts are as high as 27 MMT which would peg their exportable surplus even higher. Domestic consumption there is normally only around 7 MMT.

My mate Mike Lee in Ukraine says that: "Weather is good, bit dry but that has helped with getting all the winter crops in the ground and if you didn't over cultivate and kept some moisture in the soil then your crops are growing away nicely. There is too much recreational cultivation in Ukraine which breaks the structure and dries the soil out.

"Winter OSR has been slow to get underway but seems to be catching up now. Sunflower harvest well underway and maize just about got going this week, forecast cats and dogs from next week so might yet be a difficult maize harvest." The rain may not be good news for the corn harvest, but it won't do any harm at all for winter wheat and OSR.

Talking of corn, the harvest in France is seeing "excellent" yields, according to Agritel.

FCStone last night came out with their October US corn and soybean yield/production estimates pegging both significantly higher than last month and the USDA. See the numbers here on Agrimoney.com.