Nogger's Blog

08/06/11 -- The overnight Globex market is around 2-3c firmer on wheat and corn and 2-4c weaker on beans around 8.30am London time. Crude oil is around half a dollar lower and the pound is down to 1.1150 against the euro. It hasn't traded below 1.11 since early May, and then only briefly. We have to go all the way back to Feb/Mar 2010 to find it trading at that sort of level for any length of time.

The reason for that seems to be Moody's saying that the UK could lose it's AAA credit rating if growth remains weak and the government don't get their finger out.

Significant rains fell in northern France and western Germany yesterday afternoon and overnight. Joachim, my German correspondent, says they picked up 20mm in Rhineland in a "long lasting thunderstorm". Paris has picked up a similar 23mm in the past 24 hours.

Joachim incidentally tells me that there is a lot of concern amongst Germany farmers that they may have oversold their crops going forward. A meeting he attended in Sohren yesterday where 40 farmers were expected, had 140 turn up to discuss the possibility of claiming force majuere.

Is the drought there a legitimate "act of God" event? Not according to the lawyer that they had speaking, who told them that under previous Supreme Court rulings only a once in a 100 years event is sufficient to claim force majuere.

Chicago July corn is currently trading at a premium to CBOT wheat for only the second time in the last 15 years.