The Morning Vibe

29/07/13 -- The overnight Globex grains are lower across most of the board, with beans down 10-14 cents, meal off USD3-4, corn around 2-3 cents weaker and wheat pretty much flat.

Dec 13 corn is down to its lowest levels since Nov 2010 as US weather continues with the non threatening theme. Aug 13 beans are at a more than 1-year low meanwhile.

Jordan are tendering to buy 100 TMT of wheat. South Korea are tendering for 140 TMT of optional origin corn for Jan shipment.

A report on Reuters suggests that as much as 10% of the wheat crop in Parana in southern Brazil, which produces around half of the nation's crop, may have been "destroyed" by frosts on four consecutive days last week.

It's been mooted for a while that Brazil will need to turn to North America for wheat this year, at least until Argentina harvest their crop at the end of the year.

There's an interesting story on Agrimoney this morning regarding the concerns of the UK's largest rapeseed crusher, ADM, over the potential uneven quality of this year's domestic rapeseed crop here: 50 Shades Of Green

Rising wheat and flour prices in Pakistan mean that the country will need to step up their foreign purchases to substitute domestic supplies earmarked for export to Iran as a long-delayed deal on the latter is finally expected to be concluded within weeks, according to the finance ministry. Pakistan are said to owe Iran USD53 million for electricity that it has very little means of paying for.

Russia's grain harvest is now at 33.6 MMT off more than a quarter of the planned area, with yields said to be up almost 24%. Wheat accounts for 27.8 MMT of that and barley 3.1 MMT.

Ukraine say that they've exported 867 TMT of grains in the Jul 1-26 period, including 449 TMT of barley, 272 TMT of corn and 143 TMT of wheat. They've also shipped 167 TMT of OSR in the period.

With the French wheat crop said to be 14% harvested as of last Monday, test weights and yields are said to be average, but protein levels are on the low side.

According to the NOAA, this past weekend tied for the 2nd coolest July Chicago weekend ever with average temps of just 60.8 degrees F. No heat stress then, how long before they start talking of an early frost?

Fitch have apparently cut China's credit rating a notch this morning, the first such cut by a major agency since 1999.