Morning Markets

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 09:40 | Categorized as

05/07/11 -- The overnight Globex market is trading higher after a three day weekend with wheat up 14-17c, beans up 7-8c and corn around 8-11c firmer. Crude is down a touch.

Open interest in Malaysian palm oil hit an all time high overnight on "heightened investor interest" - or speculation as you and I call it.

The UK barley harvest is moving forward slowly. Reports are also coming in of some rapeseed being cut in Kent and Essex, with Dalmark Grain reporting "lots of rape being swathed around Sleaford over the weekend."

India says that it has all-time high grain stocks of 65.47 MMT, but has yet to decide whether to open up the export doors or continue to let their national food security rot in open storage.

The Russian Ministry have reiterated their 85 MMT grain production target for 2011 and say that carryover stocks from 2010/11 were 18-18.5 MMT, and that the country will export 15-17 MMT in 2011/12. The latter figure sounds a bit on the low side to me, especially if they did indeed export 1 MMT on day one of the embargo being lifted last Friday.

Nov London wheat has opened GBP2.50/tonne higher in early trade with Nov Paris wheat up EUR3.25/tonne.

The USDA are out after the close this evening with their latest crop conditions and harvest progress report. I expect to see corn and soybean good/excellent rating improve a little. Winter wheat harvesting should also be well advanced.

Standard and Poors are reiterating a stance mooted a couple of weeks ago, that getting private banks to roll over some Greek bonds would constitute a “selective default” as far as they are concerned. That would mean a further downgrade in Greece's credit rating from "pants" to "poohed in pants".