Chicago Beans And Corn Start Week On The Offensive

05/12/16 -- Soycomplex: Beans closed with decent gains to start the week, helped out by another set of strong weekly export inspections - 1.91 MMT. Loadings to date are running 4.1 MMT ahead of a year ago vs the 3.1 MMT projected for the full marketing year by the USDA. Adding to the friendly tone was the USDA announcing export sales of 426,000 MT of soybeans for delivery to China during the 2016/17 marketing year under the daily reporting system. ABIOVE raised projected Brazilian production to 101.4 MMT (but still lower than the 102 MMT predicted by the USDA). They also cut old crop soybean production by 500,000 MT to 96.1 MMT (96.5 MMT from the USDA). Informa estimated Argentina's new crop at 56 MMT (USDA: 57 MMT). Jan 17 Soybeans closed at $10.43 1/2, up 16 cents; Mar 17 Soybeans closed at $10.53 1/4, up 16 cents; Dec 16 Soybean Meal closed at $317.70, up $7.00; Dec 16 Soybean Oil closed at 37.49, down 2 points.

Corn: The market closed with strong gains helped by a weaker US dollar and the decent gains posted by crude oil in recent sessions. There also seemed to be an element of "risk on" buying in various commodities maybe associated with the new month. Talk that South Korean buyers have been active buyers of not less than 10 cargoes of US corn in the past few days after global prices hit 2-month lows also leaned friendly. Weekly US export inspections of 1.15 MMT were better than expected too and over 3 times the level a year ago. Loadings to date are running 6.46 MMT over a year ago versus the USDA's projection for full season exports to top last year by 8.32 MMT. Informa was unchanged on Argentine corn production at 36.5 MMT, the same as the USDA. In Russia the corn harvest is 85.8% over at 14.6 MMT. APK Inform said that Ukraine seaports exported 456.4 TMT of corn last week, up from 438.1 TMT the previous week. Dec 16 Corn closed at $3.49 1/2, up 12 cents; Mar 17 Corn closed at $3.59 1/4, up 12 cents.

Wheat: The wheat market closed mixed, Weekly export inspections came in at 453,633 MT, 85% larger than the previous week but that was a particular poor effort. This week's total was in line with expectations. "Even though this week’s loadings were nearly double a year ago values they are running around where they are normally for this general time period. This creates a situation which will likely cause the year’s total to fall short of the USDA expectations of a yoy increase of 5.44 MMT. So far the year to date numbers is 3 MMT over a year ago," said FCStone. Wheat has been getting some support from cold weather potentially threatening the US winter crop, exposed by little snow cover. ABARES forecast a record Australian wheat harvest of 32.64 MMT this year, up almost 35% on year ago levels due to favourable weather in the east. The Russian Ag Ministry said that their 2016 wheat harvest had now reached 75.9 MMT in bunker weight off 98.2% of the planned area. Dec 16 CBOT Wheat closed at $3.89 1/4, up 1 3/4 cents; Dec 16 KCBT Wheat closed at $3.90 1/4, up 1/4 cent; Dec 16 MGEX Wheat closed at $5.37 1/2, down 5 1/2 cents.