The Late Lunch

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 15:19 | Categorized as

29/05/12 -- As America returns to work following the Memorial Day holiday we see the overnight soybean market 10-12 cents higher, corn 2-4 cents lower and wheat 8-10 cents weaker. Crude is around half a dollar firmer to start the week.

There are still mixed reports coming out of Russia, but Ukraine certainly seems to be wetter. So too is eastern Australia, although WA is still dry.

The Ukraine Ministry say that this season's harvest could amount to 47.2 MMT, possibly as high as 48 MMT, given the recent improvement in the weather. Even so that would be 15-18% down on last year.

The Kansas wheat harvest was ongoing across the long weekend, holiday or not. Reports are variable but perhaps err on the side of "better than expected" under the circumstances.

Bangladesh is shopping for 50,000 MT of wheat. India may be the most likely source.

Kazakhstan says it has exported a record 10.6 MMT of grains in the 2011/12 marketing year so far, and may export up to 15 MMT next season despite a projected drop in output in 2012 given the huge volume of carryover still in the pipeline from the bumper 2011 harvest.

The Buenos Aires Grain Exchange cut their Argentine soybean crop estimate below 40 MMT last week, and Oil World now say that output could fall to 39 MMT by the time harvesting is complete.

The USDA will report on US corn and soybean planting progress after the close tonight, with the former likely to be all but done now, 76% of the 2012 soybean crop was in the ground as of a week last Sunday. Winter wheat crop conditions, particularly in Kansas, will also be of interest.