Nogger's Blog

05/05/11 -- Having traded higher early on the overnight grains reversed that trend to close with beans down around 10-12c, corn 5-7c lower and wheat down 5-8c.

Broad-based commodity liquidation is the theme for today again it would seem. Crude oil is down more than USD3.00/barrel as Brent crashed below support at USD120.00/barrel to currently trade around USD117.50/barrel.

Rising US inventories and a slow down in offtake at these elevated levels are also to blame, but it's a mass exodus from commodities that seems mostly behind today's moves. Gold, silver, copper, cocoa, coffee, cotton, sugar and gas are all lower as well.

On top of all that the dollar is having a rare up day.

The grains couldn't have picked a worse day to come out with some pretty miserable export numbers, but that is exactly what has happened.

Soybean export sales were just 21,000 MT of old crop, with no sales at all for new crop. The lowest combined weekly total in more than a year, and the second lowest since July 2005.

Corn sales were also disappointing at 284,200 MT versus expectations of 350-650,000 MT. All those sales were old crop meaning that we had no new crop sales at all this week for either corn or soybeans. That's the first time that has happened since before Christmas.

Wheat did at least manage to post a respectable sales total of 549,600 MT - in line with trade expectations for sales of 300-600,000 MT.

Day two of the Kansas wheat tour pegs yields in the state at 33.4 bushels an acre, down 16% on 39.9 bu/acre last year.

All the same old weather concerns that we had yesterday are still here today, but this has the vibe of a fundamentals go out the window sort of an afternoon.

Early calls: soybeans down 10-12c, old crop corn down 5-7c & new crop down 2-3c, wheat down 4-6c. I can easily see beans trading 20-30c down within half an hour of the opening.