Nogger's Blog

20/10/11 -- The overnights were mixed, rebounding a little from earlier losses with wheat around 2-3 cents firmer with corn 1 1/2 up to 1 1/2 cents down and beans down 1-2 cents.

Breaking news suggests that ousted Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi gas been captured, and possibly killed. That may see crude oil prices lower this afternoon.

Bangladesh has bought 50,000 MT of Indian wheat in a tender as the latter attempts to dispose of some of it's surplus stocks left over from it's last harvest, with another bumper crop expected early in 2012.

South Korea has bought 110,000 MT of optional origin feed wheat, possibly Australian, presumably misplacing corn in the ration.

Ukraine exporters will have had a busy day on the phones trying to get some wheat sales on. Grain exports in the current marketing year could double thise of 2010/11 now that the export duty has been lifted on wheat and corn.

Europe's corn crop will be a record 63.4 MMT say Strategie Grains, more than 13% up on last year. They also raised their EU-27 soft wheat production estimate for 2011 by 200,000 MT to 129.2 MMT and forecast cereal plantings for the 2012 harvest to increase by 700,000 ha.

The USDA report weekly export sales of 1.85 MMT for corn, which was actually lower than the 2.0-2.5 MMT expected with China being confirmed as taking 900,100 MT. Soybean sales were 594,700 MT, below the 850 thousand MT to 1 MMT anticipated, although China did show up taking 331,000 MT of that. Wheat sales were also below trade ideas at 399,400 MT.

The markets remain nervous on the conflicting vibes coming from European leaders ahead of the weekend summit.

Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: wheat up 1-3 cents, corn flat to 1 cent firmer and soybeans mixed.