Morning Machinations

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 10:21 | Categorized as

14/04/11 -- The overnight grains are mostly lower this morning ahead of what could be an interesting set of weekly export sales from the USDA this afternoon.

The trade is looking for soybean sales of 200-400 TMT, corn sales of 550-950 TMT and wheat sales of 300-750 TMT. What everyone will be looking for is evidence of Chinese old crop soybean cancellations/deferrals. The other thing I'll be looking for is if there is any sign of price rationing kicking on for corn. Third, and finally, I don't suppose that China might feature anywhere as a corn or wheat buyer will they?

We shall know at 13.30 BST.

I'll predict lower soybean net sales than the trade is anticipating, possibly even negative sales, and another week of robust corn sales with wheat coming in on target.

Japan have bought nearly 148 TMT of US wheat in their regular weekly tender today, that won't feature in this week's sales reports though.

In other news FranceAgriMer say that the country will export a record 12.75 MMT of wheat to non-EU destinations in 2010/11, out of total exports of 19.36 MMT. That's an increase of 30% on wheat heading outside the 27-member bloc compared with 2009/10.

French soft wheat ending stocks will amount to almost 2.3 MMT at the end of the current marketing year, they said. That's actually up slightly on last month despite an increase in exports due to an upward tweak in 2010's final production numbers. Corn ending stocks will total 2.5 MMT.

Plantings for the coming harvest are seen at 5 million hectares, 1.6% higher than last year, they added.