The Morning Rant

01/11/11 -- I'm a bit late with my rant this morning due to unforeseen email problems, which for once possibly weren't down to Virgin Media's inadequacies.

The overnight markets are once again a sea of red with CBOT wheat down 10-12 cents, corn down 8-11 cents and beans falling 16-17 cents. The dollar is sharply firmer. The pound hit 1.6164 yesterday but is down to 1.5940 this morning. The euro is as sick as a parrot.

The announcement after the stock markets closed last night that Greece would hold a referendum on accepting the criteria surrounding last week's proposed aid package sees the FTSE100 down 2.5% this morning, with the German DAX and French CAC approaching 4% down.

The pace at which last Thursday's europhoria has melted away is pretty shocking.

There are some suggestions that the Greek move is the start of a way out of the eurozone for them.

Meanwhile the difference in yields between German and Italian bonds is at its highest ever since the euro was created.

Throw into the mix the sudden demise of MF Global, which appeared to be doing perfectly fine thank you very much just a week ago, and the market has to be thinking who's next?

Crude is a couple of dollars weaker, and this morning there are reports of a slowdown in economic growth in China.

I've got this far down the page without even mentioning any grain market fundamentals, but that is because these economic factors are a more important driver to grain prices than anything else in my opinion.

Coming soon, the fundamentals....