Nogger's Blog

08/07/11 -- The overnight grains finished mostly a little firmer with corn leading the way around 5-9c higher. Beans and wheat were flat to 3 cents firmer in a dull Globex session.

After that closed though there were some fairly dramatic US jobs numbers released, which saw crude crash from half a dollar or so firmer to two dollars lower in one swift movement.

The data showed unemployment in the US rising to 9.2% after it was revealed that the ailing US economy added only 18,000 jobs in June and the May number was revised down as well. Businesses added the fewest jobs in more than a year and federal, state and local government jobs have been cut by almost a quarter of a million in the past eight months.

Weekly export sales were robust for corn at almost 1.5 MMT, but towards the low end of expectations for wheat and soybeans. China showed up buying one cargo of US wheat.

Corn volume yesterday was the lowest since New Year's Eve and open interest has now declined to it's lowest in a year as fund money has exited over the last three weeks.

Tunisia is tendering for 100,000 MT of optional origin wheat, having just snapped up Egypt's and Jordan's business it will be interesting to see if Russia gets a hat-trick this week.

Early calls are wheat and beans up 1-3 cents and corn up 6-8 cents. All three are up on the week as a whole so we may get some modest selling ahead of the weekend, especially in light of these new jobs numbers.