CBOT Closing Comments
Soybeans
Beans had a very bad day at the office, with July settling 66 1/2 cents lower at $11.33 a bushel, and Nov finishing 68 cents lower at $8.95. Limitless July was 81 cents down at the low of the day. US weather is largely non-threatening, hot and wet is good. China might keep buying beans, but they don't seem to want US poultry, with stories now circulating that China intends to cut off shipments of US chickens entirely in a tit-for-tat dispute it is taking to the WTO. That won't do anything for soymeal supplies in the US, with July closing $20.20/tonne lower tonight. The Chinese story got the market spooked, as that has been the main driving force recently, and the large fund longs crashed out all at the same time just ahead of Friday's WASDE report.
Corn
July corn closed at $3.35 ½, down 7 ¾ cents, and December corn at $3.35 ¾, down 8 ½ cents. A more genteel day for corn, although there was some inevitable spillover from bean weakness. That said, the December contract had a low of $3.35, within 30 cents of the contract-life low of $3.05 posted September 15th of 2006. US weather looks good for the week ahead and crude was weak, closing below $63/barrel, and a firmer dollar also didn't help corn's case today.
Wheat
Sep wheat fell 6 3/4 cents to close at $5.12 1/2 a bushel. In many ways wheat is completely different to beans and corn at the moment. We are in the middle of harvesting US winter wheat, making it much less of an unknown quantity. In addition, wheat peaked a long time before the other two, making it seem logically likely that it will bottom first. Reports coming out of Russia, Ukraine and now Canada suggest that all is not well with wheat crops there, and that existing production estimates from the likes of the USDA have been overstated. They will get the chance to correct that on Friday with their latest WASDE report, but as we all know the USDA are famously slow at getting their arses into gear.
Beans had a very bad day at the office, with July settling 66 1/2 cents lower at $11.33 a bushel, and Nov finishing 68 cents lower at $8.95. Limitless July was 81 cents down at the low of the day. US weather is largely non-threatening, hot and wet is good. China might keep buying beans, but they don't seem to want US poultry, with stories now circulating that China intends to cut off shipments of US chickens entirely in a tit-for-tat dispute it is taking to the WTO. That won't do anything for soymeal supplies in the US, with July closing $20.20/tonne lower tonight. The Chinese story got the market spooked, as that has been the main driving force recently, and the large fund longs crashed out all at the same time just ahead of Friday's WASDE report.
Corn
July corn closed at $3.35 ½, down 7 ¾ cents, and December corn at $3.35 ¾, down 8 ½ cents. A more genteel day for corn, although there was some inevitable spillover from bean weakness. That said, the December contract had a low of $3.35, within 30 cents of the contract-life low of $3.05 posted September 15th of 2006. US weather looks good for the week ahead and crude was weak, closing below $63/barrel, and a firmer dollar also didn't help corn's case today.
Wheat
Sep wheat fell 6 3/4 cents to close at $5.12 1/2 a bushel. In many ways wheat is completely different to beans and corn at the moment. We are in the middle of harvesting US winter wheat, making it much less of an unknown quantity. In addition, wheat peaked a long time before the other two, making it seem logically likely that it will bottom first. Reports coming out of Russia, Ukraine and now Canada suggest that all is not well with wheat crops there, and that existing production estimates from the likes of the USDA have been overstated. They will get the chance to correct that on Friday with their latest WASDE report, but as we all know the USDA are famously slow at getting their arses into gear.
