Early Call On Chicago

25/04/12 -- The overnight grains see soybeans 28 cents higher on old crop and 15-16 cents higher on old crop. Corn and wheat are up around 4-6 cents. Crude is barely changed as too is the US dollar.

Soybeans lead the way once again, with talk now surfacing that the Argy crop will struggle to hit the 40 MMT mark (the USDA currently say 45 MMT).

Argentina's crop keeps shrinking, and with that the increased risk of disruptions in supply from a seller already tarnished with a history of unreliability.

Brazil appears to have hung up the "we are currently over capacity, please try again later" sign.

So if you want beans now from a reliable supplier there's really only one shop open.

There is talk that China bought up to half a million tonnes of US soybeans yesterday, there's no confirmation of that yet from the USDA. If true that would seem to confirm that they are having trouble buying South American soybean for the time slots they want.

Beans ARE heavily overbought, but not without significant support from underlying bullish fundamentals. The market can ill afford a serious US weather scare this summer, and let's face it we normally get at least one or two.

The USDA have today reported the sale of 420,000 MT of new crop corn to "unknown" along with 172,500 MT of new crop confirmed as China plus an additional 90,000 MT of old crop corn to China.

Yesterday's confirmed sales met with a "buy the rumour sell the fact" insipid response, it will be interesting to see if the same is true today.

The early call on this afternoon's CBOT session: corn and wheat 4-6 cents higher, soybeans up 25-30 cents.