Nogger's Blog

07/02/12 -- The overnight grains are lower with wheat down around 7 cents, corn down 4-5 cents and beans falling 3-4 cents. Crude is a dollar easier, trading below USD96/barrel for the first time in seven weeks on ample US stocks and sluggish demand from a stuttering global economy.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that time is running out for Greece to resolve and implement it's austerity issues.

Rusagrotrans say that Russian grain exports were 19.5 MMT to the end of January and are likely to total 1.6-1.7 MMT this month, bringing the 2011/12 year to date total to a little over 21 MMT at the end of February. They also say that the country could export 27-28 MMT this season (Jul/Jun).

Kazakhstan's Agricultre Minister says that the landlocked nation's grain exports are now running at around 1.2 MMT/month.

A Bloomberg survey suggests that high prices will encourage US farmers to plant the largest area of corn, soybeans and wheat for the 2012 harvest since 1984 at 226.9 million acres.

PotashCorp recently forecast that 7m acres of land will exit the US Conservation Reserve Program this year and "with most of that land expected to be planted to wheat." Informa meanwhile are predicting the largest US corn acreage since WWII.

There's some rain in the forecast for Argentina tomorrow, before a bloody good soaking arrives on Thursday, according to the GFS model.

After the recent rally it looks like we are going to see some money taken off the table today ahead of the upcoming USDA WASDE report on Thursday.

Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: corn down 3-4 cents, beans down 3-5 cents, wheat down 6-8 cents.