Morning Snippets

24/05/13 -- The overnight Globex grains are mixed, with wheat and soybeans mostly a couple of cents or so firmer and corn down a similar amount.

It's a long weekend in the States, with the markets closed Monday for the Memorial Day holiday.

Brussels issued 247 TMT of soft wheat export licenses this week, bringing the 2012/13 marketing year to date total to 17.6 MMT, up 47% versus 12.0 MMT this time last year. Corn imports meanwhile are up almost 89% at 10.0 MMT.

Agritel say that Ukraine should have a record corn crop this year after the planted area improved sharply.

Turkey is expecting a 9.2% jump in wheat production to 21.9 MMT this year, which maybe explains why they are tendering to sell 240 TMT of red milling wheat for May/Jun shipment. They are also forecasting an 11% jump in barley output to 11.0 MMT along with a 7.6% increase in corn production to 4.9 MMT.

Rabobank meanwhile are forecasting Paris wheat prices to dip to EUR190/tonne by Q4 of this year, an 8.5% decline from where Nov 13 closed last night. If we factor in a similar fall for London wheat then that puts prices around GBP15/tonne lower later in the year than where Nov 13 currently resides.

They see soybeans at USD11.75/bu in the final quarter of the year, around 5.5% below last night's Nov 13 close, with corn prices down to USD5/bu, some 6.5% under where Dec 13 finished yesterday.

In the US next week "deep troughing in the West and strong ridging in the East brings moist, unstable southwesterly flow across the Plains and Western Con Belt. More severe weather, abnormally wet conditions and variable temperatures will occur across both the HRW Belt, Spring Wheat Belt and Western Corn Belt," say QT Weather.

I have seen some reports this morning suggesting that the Rosario dock workers strike has ended, but can't confirm this. Other reports say that talks have broken down and that the strike will continue into next week.