CBOT Closing Comments

Soybeans

July beans closed at $11.28 ¼, up 17 ¾ cents, November at $9.17, up 1 cent. The market clearly does not think that the USDA ending stocks are correct for old-crop, and neither do I. They are clearly guilty of trying to avoid panicking the market by coming out with a figure of 100 million bushels or less. Stocks will be incredibly tight this year, they just don't want to admit it. Having said that, I am not bullish at all on new crop. We are likely to see three record high crops in a row. The US in Sep/Oct, Brazil in Feb/Apr and Argentina in Apr/Jun.

Corn

July corn closed at $3.45 ½, up 2 cents, whilst December corn was at $3.38, down 2 cents. US weather forecasts are very promising for US corn development over the next few weeks, and after that the crop is pretty much made. Global ending stocks for Argentina increased from last year by .13 MMT, for China by 4.05 MMT and decreased by .4 MMT for South Africa and 1.5 MMT for Brazil. Today’s CFTC report showed continued liquidation of net long positions in the corn by the Large Specs and continued addition of net longs by the index funds.

Wheat

July CBOT wheat closed at $4.91 ¾, down 2 ½ cents. The USDA numbers were a bit bearish, US all wheat production was pretty spot on with the average trade guess at 2.112 billion bushels, compared to expectations of 2.107 billion. incidentally, 2.112 billion bushels is around 57.5 MMT. World wheat production estimates were cut in Canada, Argentina and the EU-27. They haven't cut Argy production anything like enough though at 9.5 MMT, that's over 50% more than the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange are now saying.