The Morning Rant

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 10:07 | Categorized as

12/01/12 -- Argentina got it's soaking rains but corn closed virtually unchanged, seemingly unmoved by the news, supported by fund buying once again. These boys are starting to build up a significant long position in corn, buying an estimated 5,000 corn contracts last night to add to the 4,000 they bought on Tuesday and the 11,000 added on Monday. If you're a livestock farmer who wants prices down then this developing trend should get you worried.

For a video of the Argy rains go here, it's in Spanish or whatever lingo they speak down there, but it's worth a look even if only to ogle the young and foxy presenter.

Luckily for you and me, my newest mate Lourens who sent me the link has translated the gist of it for us:

"Significant rains went from the south of the Buenos Aires province and then gradually up to the West to North-Western regions (provinces of Córdoba and Santa Fe). This means rain in all of the important soy, mais, sunflower areas. The meteorologist says that around 40 millimetres has fallen (on average).

"Farmers in different regions gave local reports about the situation. They confirm rainfall between 25 to 80 mm. In general however around 100 mm is needed to get the soil sufficient back to normal for optimum growth. In some areas it had not rained for 40 days (biblical isn't it?).

"Damage due to drought was reported everywhere. Especially the first 'batch' of mais suffers most. This mais is just in the stage of kernel-setting, so high demand of water and nutrients. Mais however sowed in a later stage has been strongly affected as well but strong recovery can be expected when regular rains will come.

"Reports are more optimistic when speaking about soy. The early sowed soybeans are suffering from drought, with permanent damage, but good recovery can occur in many cases.

"The second batch of soybeans (sowed in December) can now benefit fully from the rain, however already (small) plants are lost due to drought. For the soy-areas that are still awaiting sowing, farmers can decide to use a short-cycle variety.

"Long term (3-months) forecast for rain is expected to be normal or slightly below normal. Long tern expectations for temperature normal or slightly above normal."

Many thanks to Lourens for that.

Now we wait on the USDA to see if they chose to urinate on the Fund's chips.