Chicago Grains Coments - Monday

25/01/16 -- Soycomplex: Beans closed around 4 cents higher. Weekly export inspections of 1.197 MMT were down on last week and the corresponding week in 2015, but still fairly decent. Marketing year to date inspections are now 11.6% smaller than 2014/15. AgRural said that the Brazilian soybean harvest in is 1.5% complete compared to 3.5% last year and 2% for the 5-year average. Top state of Mato Grosso is 3.6% harvested compared to 7.4% last year. "In the municipality of Campo Verde, which is located in southeastern Mato Grosso, 10% of the soybeans have been harvested, but another 20% of the crop has been ready for harvest for at least 15 days, but wet weather has kept the combines out of the fields," says Dr Cordonnier. Mar 16 Soybeans settled at $8.80 1/2, up 4 cents,; May 16 Soybeans settled at $8.81 3/4, up 4 1/2 cents; Mar 16 Soybean Meal settled at $272.50, up $4.00; Mar 16 Soybean Oil settled at 30.44, down 6 points.

Corn: Corn closed with little change. Weekly export inspections came in at just shy of 600 TMT. Season to date inspections are down 21.5% from last year. Crude was back under pressure with a vengeance, which corn did it's best to ignore. Chinese New Year is just around the corner. The trade is pondering what it might do to address it's huge domestic corn surplus, and whether it might to something prior to the start of that (Feb 8)? India announced that it had bought 225,500 MT of Ukraine corn, just about as it is due to start harvesting its own crop - which suggests that the jungle drums are correct and that all is not well with that crop. A Bloomberg survey estimated the South African corn crop at 6.1 MMT, down 39% on a year ago. The Brazilian government are said to be likely to soon begin auctioning off state-owned corn stocks in the south of the country as the weak real means that exports of the grain have been exceptional, and local stocks are therefore tight. Mar 16 Corn settled at $3.69 3/4, down 1/2 cent; May 16 Corn settled at $3.74 3/4, unchanged.

Wheat: The wheat market closed firmer following the Russian suggestion that it might further tighten restrictive measures on grain exports. The Russian rouble was back under pressure today as crude oil resumed it's downwards trajectory. The Russian Ag Ministry said today that the country had exported 21.34 MMT of grains so far this season (to Jan 20), a 3% reduction on a year ago. That includes just under 16 MMT of wheat, 3.3 MMT of barley and 1.9 MMT of corn. Weekly US export inspections of 187,903 MT were dull. India said that it's wheat crop was planted on 29.2 million ha, down 4% on a year ago as growers were unable to catch up with reduced sowings earlier in the season due to adverse weather conditions. The Philippines said that they'd bought 100,000 MT of optional origin feed wheat, possibly Argentine material, at $177 C&F for Apr/Jun shipment. Tunisia said that they'd bought 92,000 MT of soft wheat and 50,000 MT of feed barley, both of optional origin for Apr/May shipment. May 16 CBOT Wheat settled at $4.86 3/4, up 6 1/2 cents; May 16 KCBT Wheat settled at $4.84 1/4, up 3 1/2 cents; May 16 MGEX Wheat settled at $5.05, up 2 cents.