eCBOT Close, Early Call

The overnights closed mixed Monday with beans around 7-8 cents higher, corn up around a cent or so and wheat down 1-3 cents.

The US weather forecast for the week ahead is unquestionably drier and warmer than anything we saw in October.

A few lingering showers will remain in northern areas; Minnesota, N Iowa, N Indiana and N Illinois. Elsewhere will be largely dry. It seems that the forecast for the second week in November is similarly beneficial at the moment.

The USDA will report tonight on the latest harvest progress for corn and beans as of Sunday. They will also report on winter wheat planting.

For Illinois, where the bean and corn harvest has been severely delayed, the cut-off date for claiming maximum benefits on winter wheat crop insurance has now passed.

It seems highly likely that US winter wheat acreage will fall short of original intentions.

Russia bought 55,300 MT of wheat on the opening day of it's intervention purchases today. Ukraine report 22% of it's newly planted winter wheat crop is in poor condition.

Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: soybeans called 5-7 cents higher, corn up 1-2 cents, wheat flat to 2 cents lower.