eCBOT Close, Early Call
The overnight grains closed firmer, with beans and wheat around 6 cents higher and corn up 2-3 cents.
The dollar remains weak, against everything but the pound, and crude oil is a little firmer. The US Energy Dept are expected to say that crude stocks rose by around a million barrels last week shortly after the opening of CBOT this afternoon.
Yesterday's USDA report is already history. The US weather outlook seems reasonably favourable for attempting to get the remainder of the harvest in.
Already attention is starting to turn to South America.
In Argentina the western and northern growing areas are very dry, requiring at least 100 millimeters (4 inches) of rainfall to eradicate drought, says Martell Crop Projections. In La Pampa drought is more damaging for winter wheat than soybeans, whilst the best growing conditions exist in Eastern Buenos Aires, Entre Rios, southern Santa Fe and extreme east Cordoba, where field moisture was near normal at the end of October, they add.
In Brazil Mato Grosso soybean development looks promising at this early stage of the new growing season, but Parana has become unfavourably dry. Rio Grande so Sul is expecting heavy beneficial rainfall today that would ease dryness, they conclude.
I'm starting to be inclined to say that production in South America may not be quite the bin-buster that some are forecasting. The desire to plant and harvest fast maturing early varieties in Brazil to take advantage of front-end premiums may knock a couple of bushels off yields there. There may also be a temptation to cut beans early to get a second corn crop in.
In Argentina, yields might be adversely affected by the poor seed quality after last year's disastrous crop, as well as dryness in the north and west.
Japan is shopping for 97,000 MT of mostly US wheat this week and Jordan are in the market for 100,000 MT later in the month.
The Russian grain harvest now stands at 101.4 MMT in bunker weight, according to the Ag Ministry, of that 63.4 MMT is wheat and 18.7 MMT barley.
Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: corn called 1 to 3 higher; soybeans called 6 to 8 higher; wheat called 3 to 5 higher.
The dollar remains weak, against everything but the pound, and crude oil is a little firmer. The US Energy Dept are expected to say that crude stocks rose by around a million barrels last week shortly after the opening of CBOT this afternoon.
Yesterday's USDA report is already history. The US weather outlook seems reasonably favourable for attempting to get the remainder of the harvest in.
Already attention is starting to turn to South America.
In Argentina the western and northern growing areas are very dry, requiring at least 100 millimeters (4 inches) of rainfall to eradicate drought, says Martell Crop Projections. In La Pampa drought is more damaging for winter wheat than soybeans, whilst the best growing conditions exist in Eastern Buenos Aires, Entre Rios, southern Santa Fe and extreme east Cordoba, where field moisture was near normal at the end of October, they add.
In Brazil Mato Grosso soybean development looks promising at this early stage of the new growing season, but Parana has become unfavourably dry. Rio Grande so Sul is expecting heavy beneficial rainfall today that would ease dryness, they conclude.
I'm starting to be inclined to say that production in South America may not be quite the bin-buster that some are forecasting. The desire to plant and harvest fast maturing early varieties in Brazil to take advantage of front-end premiums may knock a couple of bushels off yields there. There may also be a temptation to cut beans early to get a second corn crop in.
In Argentina, yields might be adversely affected by the poor seed quality after last year's disastrous crop, as well as dryness in the north and west.
Japan is shopping for 97,000 MT of mostly US wheat this week and Jordan are in the market for 100,000 MT later in the month.
The Russian grain harvest now stands at 101.4 MMT in bunker weight, according to the Ag Ministry, of that 63.4 MMT is wheat and 18.7 MMT barley.
Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: corn called 1 to 3 higher; soybeans called 6 to 8 higher; wheat called 3 to 5 higher.
