Overnight Market Developments
The overnight eCBOT market is mixed, with beans and wheat a couple of cents firmer and corn a couple lower.
Crude is again firmly entrenched below $50 at $47.95/barrel as more evidence emerges that the global recession is going to get substantially worse before it gets better.
US stocks closed sharply lower last night and Asia has picked up on that theme this morning, with Japan's Nikkei falling 6.4%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 4.9%.
Stock markets in South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan and Singapore also fell.
The FTSE100, the French CAC40 and German DAX have all opened around 1% lower in early trade,
There are some signs that the grains sector is managing to divorce itself a little from these outside markets.
Wheat is a little firmer though, after the Canadian Wheat Board said that it expects world plantings to be 3% lower next season, that is almost double the figure estimated by the IGC last week, and to my mind still a bit ambitious.
Even with plantings down "just" 3% it is the final production numbers that are going to be of more importance. As mentioned last week, on the balance of probability, yields could be significantly reduced in 2009, leading to a sharply lower world output.
Japan is looking for 72,000mt of US/Canadian wheat in a tender this week.
The Eastern Australian harvest is now said to be running around three wheeks behinds schedule, after more heavy rains battered NSW and southern QLD at the weekend. Trade estimates are that somwhere in the region of 1-2mmt of wheat will be downgraded to feed as a result of these rains.
Of an estimated 40-50% of the northern NSW crop still to be harvested, at least 60% is likely to be downgraded, one analyst said. With feed wheat around A$100/tonne cheaper than milling wheat, this will have a significant impact on farm incomes in the region, he added.
The pound is lower again, fresh from yesterday's largest one-day drop in percentage terms since 1992, hurt by falling stocks and data showing the slump in housing and manufacturing is deepening.
At 9.15am GMT the British currency was $1.4830 against the dollar from $1.4884 late yesterday. It was at 85.06 pence against the euro from 84.67 pence yesterday.
The BOE and ECB are both expected to cut interest rates further later this week.
Certainly it would seem that the outlook for the pound isn't too rosy at the moment. This of course will mean that falling feed prices in USD terms, won't necessarily be translated into lower prices here in the UK. It may also provide some degree of support to domestic wheat futures.
Crude is again firmly entrenched below $50 at $47.95/barrel as more evidence emerges that the global recession is going to get substantially worse before it gets better.
US stocks closed sharply lower last night and Asia has picked up on that theme this morning, with Japan's Nikkei falling 6.4%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 4.9%.
Stock markets in South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan and Singapore also fell.
The FTSE100, the French CAC40 and German DAX have all opened around 1% lower in early trade,
There are some signs that the grains sector is managing to divorce itself a little from these outside markets.
Wheat is a little firmer though, after the Canadian Wheat Board said that it expects world plantings to be 3% lower next season, that is almost double the figure estimated by the IGC last week, and to my mind still a bit ambitious.
Even with plantings down "just" 3% it is the final production numbers that are going to be of more importance. As mentioned last week, on the balance of probability, yields could be significantly reduced in 2009, leading to a sharply lower world output.
Japan is looking for 72,000mt of US/Canadian wheat in a tender this week.
The Eastern Australian harvest is now said to be running around three wheeks behinds schedule, after more heavy rains battered NSW and southern QLD at the weekend. Trade estimates are that somwhere in the region of 1-2mmt of wheat will be downgraded to feed as a result of these rains.
Of an estimated 40-50% of the northern NSW crop still to be harvested, at least 60% is likely to be downgraded, one analyst said. With feed wheat around A$100/tonne cheaper than milling wheat, this will have a significant impact on farm incomes in the region, he added.
The pound is lower again, fresh from yesterday's largest one-day drop in percentage terms since 1992, hurt by falling stocks and data showing the slump in housing and manufacturing is deepening.
At 9.15am GMT the British currency was $1.4830 against the dollar from $1.4884 late yesterday. It was at 85.06 pence against the euro from 84.67 pence yesterday.
The BOE and ECB are both expected to cut interest rates further later this week.
Certainly it would seem that the outlook for the pound isn't too rosy at the moment. This of course will mean that falling feed prices in USD terms, won't necessarily be translated into lower prices here in the UK. It may also provide some degree of support to domestic wheat futures.
