The Morning Vibe

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 09:11 | Categorized as

23/08/11 -- The overnight grains are all higher after the USDA cut good/excellent ratings for beans, corn and spring wheat after last night's close.

Today we have Stats Canada out with their latest impressions of this season's wheat and rapeseed production there. The trade is expecting upwards revisions on last month with wheat coming in at 23.5 MMT and rapeseed output estimated at 13.5 MMT. If so that would be 2 MMT more wheat and 900 TMT more rapeseed than the August USDA numbers.

Ukraine says that it's early grain harvest is finished and they've brought in 34.2 MMT, a 30% increase on last year. Wheat accounts for 23.2 MMT of that and barley 9.5 MMT, they say. That's 2.2 MMT more wheat and 1 MMT more barley than the latest USDA estimates. Interestingly my agronomist mate Mike Lee reported on his blog on Friday that despite the Ministry then saying that the harvest was 94% complete there were still combines running all over the place.

On the US weather front Martell Crop Projections report: "Growing conditions will be warmer than normal in US corn and soybean growing areas (this week) as an enlarged heat dome covers a bigger area of the nation. Rainfall is expected to be sub-par this week on most US corn- and soybean farms. Tropical storm Irene may deliver 6-8 inches of rain to the southeast and mid-Atlantic coastal areas Friday-Saturday."

The slippery Egyptians are back in the market for wheat again today, filling their pointy little boots they are. They've bought more than a million tonnes of Russian wheat since the export ban got lifted and seem quite likely to add to that again today. Iraq are also in the market but that order may go to their puppeteers, sorry liberators, the US.

Asian stock markets were higher overnight and the FTSE100, German Dax and Paris Cac are all around 1.5-2.2% firmer in early trade. NYMEX crude is up more than a dollar and gold has hit a record high above USD1,900/oz this morning.

London wheat has come in around GBP1.25/tonne higher with Paris wheat up a couple of euros.