Lunchtime News
26/06/12 -- The electronic grains are mixed with wheat 2-5 cents lower, soybeans 5-7 cents higher and corn up 10-15 cents. Crude oil is down 20 cents at USD79/barrel.US weather offers no more encouragement today than it did yesterday.
India says it urgently needs to move 1 MMT of wheat stored out in the open as the monsoon season arrives. Having paid over the odds for it domestically the government, not surprisingly, have wheat oozing from every orifice.
Reports suggest that the government have finally decided to bite the bullet and sell some stocks off at discounted levels to get some movement, rather than see the stuff rot in the fields.
A Dow Jones survey estimates June 1st corn ending stocks at 3.18 billion bushels compared with 3.67 billion a year ago. Soybean stocks are estimated at 640 million, versus 619 million last year and wheat stocks are pegged at 726 million versus 862 million.
A similar survey estimates US all wheat plantings at 56.9m (vs 55.9m in March), corn plantings at 96.0m (95.9m) and the soybean area at 75.6m (73.9m).
The USDA will reveal all on Friday.
The world and his wife are lining up to knock big percentages off the USDA's optimistic yield projections this year.
Farm Futures magazine puts corn yields at 156.9 bu/acre this year, down from the USDA's estimate of 166 bu/acre and pegs soybean yields at 41.3 bu/acre against the USDA's 43.9 bu/acre. Their estimates are typical of where a whole host of others are lining up.
Standard Chartered say that China could import 72.2 MMT of soybeans in 2012, an average of 6 MMT a month, and far more than any other estimate around.
A Spanish bond auction today saw three-month bills pay yields of 2.36 percent, nearly triple the 0.85 percent they got away with paying only a month ago. The rate on 6-month bills was 3.24 percent, almost double the 1.7 percent paid in May. Italy's borrowing costs also spike higher today.
