Early Call On Chicago

06/01/11 -- The overnight grains were mostly lower with beans and corn down 1-2c and wheat 5-7c lower. Crude oil is flirting either side of USD90/barrel and the US dollar is a bit firmer.

No huge amounts of fresh news today, although reports continue to circulate of potential heavy fund selling as part of their "rebalancing" act starting Friday.

Concern for winterkill potential in the US seems to be growing, with a very cold air mass likely to push as far south as Kansas and Oklahoma by the early part of next week.

Conflicting reports continue to come out of Australia with regards wheat quality there, although few now seem to doubt that they have at least got the quantity side of the equation right.

Argentine corn potential already looks to have been compromised with many estimates now around the 20 MMT mark from 25/26 MMT a month or two ago. Some analysts are now downgrading soybean forecasts too.

Weekly export sales from the USDA were decent for wheat, OK-ish for beans and poor for corn, but it was a holiday week so maybe we shouldn't read too much into those.

Palm oil is fully steady, having hit 34 month highs earlier in the week. Beans, corn and wheat are all close to very recent 28/29 month highs too at these levels, so some profit-taking may be in order ahead of next week's USDA reports.

Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: beans and corn 2-3c lower, wheat down 5-7c.