Nogger's Blog

12/09/11 -- Global stock markets continue to fall this morning, adding to Friday's steep declines with the FTSE100 already down 142 points. The French CAC is almost 5% lower, and the German DAX down more than 3% in early trade.

No surprises for guessing that it's the threat of a Greek debt default that's causing the concern. NYMEX crude is down almost two dollars as the US dollar threatens to break through support at 1.58 against the pound.

The overnight grains are around unchanged however, despite dollar strength, which is a pretty decent performance under the circumstances as the market awaits this afternoon's USDA reports.

Unless you have been living in a cave, or held pikey prisoner in Leighton Buzzard, you will probably know by now that the trade is expecting a US corn/soybean production estimate of just over 12.5 billion and 3.0 billion with yields coming in at 149bpa and 41bpa respectively.

The USDA will also report on crop conditions after the close, once again I'd expect a drop in good/excellent for both corn and beans of 1-2 percentage points.

Chinese soybean imports are slowing a little, with August coming in at 4.5 MMT, 5% down on last year and 16% down on July.

WxRisk says that the chance of a frost in the Dakotas, northern Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin later this week is "pretty high" as a "strong cold front will arrive over the upper Plains from south central Canada late on the 13th into the 14th and sweep rapidly to the Midwest reaching the East coast by the morning of the 15th."

Once we get the USDA out of the way this frost threat story could cause some excitement. However the threat of a Greek default and the domino effect that would cause could overshadow the bullish fundamentals.