Thursday Morning Titbits

Not much fresh so far overnight. eCBOT futures are a little lower at 8am GMT. Updated prices appear on the right throughout the morning.

Japan has bought 157,000mt wheat in a tender this morning, 90,000mt of it US origin, and the rest a mixture of Canadian and Australian wheat.

Pakistan is seeking 150,000mt optional origin wheat in a tender.

The weather in Argentina continues hot & dry, with temperatures forecast to get even hotter, with highs of 104 degrees forecast for the weekend. President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner, addressed the farmers of Argentina on Wednesday and has offered aid in the midst of the worse drought in living memory in the hottest summer since 1955.

Crude is lower overnight at $36.72/barrel. US Energy Department data yesterday saw oil stocks at Cushing, Oklahoma - the delivery point for the contract - reach a record 33m barrels. Gas stocks also rose more than expected, but the biggest surprise was distillate stocks increasing by more than 6 million barrels. Distillates includes heating oil and diesel.

The euro is lower, close to a five week low against the dollar ahead of today's ECB announcement on interest rates. A cut of a half percent is already priced into the market. Keep up to date with the latest movements with live forex rates to the right of this blog.

ABF posted a sharp rise in revenues in the 16 weeks to January 3 climbing by 21% from the same period the previous year.

HSBC and UBS may be liable for as much as $3.2 billion of losses linked to Bernard Madoff in a dispute over the duties of financial custodians at funds in Luxembourg and Ireland, reports Bloomberg.

DSG International, which owns Currys and PC World, said like-for-like sales dropped 10% in the three months to 10 January. Sales at Argos are also down, falling 7.5% in the 18 weeks to 3 January, whilst sales at Homebase fell 10.2% in the same period.