The Morning Vibe

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 09:08 | Categorized as

16/02/11 -- The overnight grains are a bit firmer this morning as one or two buyers emerge convinced that last night's shake out has merely presented a buying opportunity. Globex wheat is up 5-7c, corn 3-4c higher and beans are up 4-6c.

A weak US dollar is helping, and so too is crude oil being up around half a dollar, albeit from the lowest levels yesterday since November.

Egypt are back in the market tendering for wheat today, French material will probably miss out again though. Brussels will report tomorrow tonight on weekly export licences, only 128,000 MT of soft wheat was authorised for export last week and we need a much bigger number than that to hit USDA projections for the 2010/11 MY.

ABARES (they've changed their name slightly, adding an "S" to make them look more interesting) say that despite drought, floods, locusts, cricketing capitulation, cyclones and killer zombies this season's Australian wheat crop will total 26.3 MMT, a 20% increase on last season.

Ukraine, salivating at current global grain prices, have decided to release an extra 1 MMT of wheat and 1.7 MMT of corn onto the market.

Turkey's 300,000 MT wheat tender was split 50:50 between the US and Kazakhstan.

The Texas wheat crop isn't looking very bright as the ongoing drought there sees only 15% of the crop rated good/excellent, with 58% of it poor/very poor. Not much of that is probably going to see a combine this year.

China's Ministry of Commerce says that soybean imports in Feb will slump to only 3.13 MMT. Added to news of "unknown" cancellations yesterday and gathering confidence that Brazil is in for a record 70 MMT plus crop this year and US beans may find it difficult to press much higher for the time being.

On the global weather front La Nina finally seems to be waning, and rapidly too. China is getting some precipitation in the north, with more on the way next week, according to QT Weather.

Next week's annual USDA Outlook Forum will attempt to put some flesh on the bones of the so-called "battle for acres" - baseline projections released earlier in the week were based on data gathered in November so next week's estimates may prove more reliable.