Morning Market Snippets
Crude oil skidded lower yesterday after the US Energy Dept said that stockpiles there rose by 2.32 million barrels to 329 million last week. A day earlier the American Petroleum Institute indicated that crude oil stocks had risen by 4.7 million barrels. What is perhaps more alarming than that is news from the Energy Dept that these rises came in the depths of winter when US refineries were running at just 77.7% of capacity. That's the lowest rate in at least the last twenty one years apart from in the aftermath of severe hurricanes like Ike and Katrina. Front month WTI crude currently stands at USD76.66/barrel this morning.
The BoE is widely expected to leave their benchmark rate unchanged at their policy meeting today. More attention will be on QE, having blown the GBP200 billion asset purchase program already, will the MPC members officially bring an end to their quantitative easing efforts? Surely they aren't going to increase QE are they? The news is out at noon.
Meanwhile the ECB are out at 13.45 GMT with their announcement on rates, closely followed by a Trichet press conference. Nobody expects anything other than interest there to be left on hold either. But will they do anything about Greece?
Informa Economics upped it's estimates for Brazilian and Argentinean corn and soybean output yesterday. Beans came in at 1.5 MMT and 1 MMT respectively above the current USDA estimates. Corn came in at 2.3 MMT and 3.2 MMT respectively higher than Washington.
In the USDA's weekly export sales report due at 13.30 GMT, soybean sales estimates range from 650,000 to 800,000 MT; corn estimates range from 750,000 to 1,000,000 MT; wheat estimates range between 350,000 to 550,000 MT.
Romania's Ag Ministry says that good snow coverage of winter crops has led it to forecast yields of 3.3 MT/ha this season. That will give the country an expected wheat crop of 7 MMT in 2010, up by more than a third from 5.2 MMT in 2009.
Agri-food Canada peg the upcoming 2010 Canadian wheat crop at 24.7 MMT, down 6.8% on last year, mainly due to a sharp decrease in durum acreage. Slightly lower yields are also being forecast. That's a little higher than the 24 MMT unofficially indicated recently by the CWB. Barley production is seen around unchanged at 9.45 MMT, and rapeseed output is forecast at 11.3 MMT, down 4.5%.
The BoE is widely expected to leave their benchmark rate unchanged at their policy meeting today. More attention will be on QE, having blown the GBP200 billion asset purchase program already, will the MPC members officially bring an end to their quantitative easing efforts? Surely they aren't going to increase QE are they? The news is out at noon.
Meanwhile the ECB are out at 13.45 GMT with their announcement on rates, closely followed by a Trichet press conference. Nobody expects anything other than interest there to be left on hold either. But will they do anything about Greece?
Informa Economics upped it's estimates for Brazilian and Argentinean corn and soybean output yesterday. Beans came in at 1.5 MMT and 1 MMT respectively above the current USDA estimates. Corn came in at 2.3 MMT and 3.2 MMT respectively higher than Washington.
In the USDA's weekly export sales report due at 13.30 GMT, soybean sales estimates range from 650,000 to 800,000 MT; corn estimates range from 750,000 to 1,000,000 MT; wheat estimates range between 350,000 to 550,000 MT.
Romania's Ag Ministry says that good snow coverage of winter crops has led it to forecast yields of 3.3 MT/ha this season. That will give the country an expected wheat crop of 7 MMT in 2010, up by more than a third from 5.2 MMT in 2009.
Agri-food Canada peg the upcoming 2010 Canadian wheat crop at 24.7 MMT, down 6.8% on last year, mainly due to a sharp decrease in durum acreage. Slightly lower yields are also being forecast. That's a little higher than the 24 MMT unofficially indicated recently by the CWB. Barley production is seen around unchanged at 9.45 MMT, and rapeseed output is forecast at 11.3 MMT, down 4.5%.
