Nogger's Blog

19/10/12 -- Soycomplex: Nov 12 Soybeans closed at USD15.34 1/4, down 11 1/4 cents; Jan 13 Soybeans closed at USD15.36 1/2, down 9 3/4 cents; Dec 12 Soybean Meal closed at USD463.80, up USD0.50; Dec 12 Soybean Oil closed at 51.58, down 72 cents. For the week Nov 12 beans gained 11 3/4 cents, meal was down USD1.40 and oil added 91 points. Informa Economics estimated that US growers would plant 80 million acres of soybeans for the 2013 harvest, a 2.8 million increase on this year. A return to trendline yields of 43.8 bu/acre would see US soybean production leap more than 20% to a record 3.453 billion bushels. If true, and there are a lot of if's here, then that would follow up from potential record output from all the main South American producers: Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay next spring. That's a lot of soybeans for China and the rest of the world to pick and chose from. Unfortunately, in the mean time we've only got America's 2.86 million bushel crop this year to scrap over, and 71% of that is sold already.

Corn: Dec 12 Corn closed at USD7.61 1/2, up 3/4 cent; Mar 13 Corn closed at USD7.59 1/2, up 1/4 cent. Dec corn was up 8 3/4 cents on the week. Informa placed US corn plantings in 2013 almost a million higher than this year's 75 year record at 97.5 million acres. Clearly, with corn and soybean prices where they are both US and South American farmers will find the acres from somewhere. The USDA attaché in Brasilia estimated corn production in Brazil for 2012/13 at a record 74 MMT, a 4 MMT increase on the USDA themselves and 1.8% up on this year's crop. South Korea bought 63,000 MT of optional origin corn. Excessive rains in Argentina are delaying corn planting, which is currently running around 11 percentage points behind year ago levels. Corn got a boost from a firmer wheat market on the back of reports that Ukraine will ban wheat exports from the middle of next month.

Wheat: Dec 12 CBOT Wheat closed at USD8.72 1/2, up 4 cents; Dec 12 KCBT Wheat closed at USD9.08, up 3 1/4 cents; Dec 12 MGEX Wheat closed at USD9.42 1/2, down 1 1/2 cents. Chicago wheat was up 15 3/4 cents on the week. Wheat gave up most of it's early gains by the close of play. Early firmness being tied to reports of a Ukraine wheat export ban. All the popular news services carried the story, although as the day wore on there seemed to be some conflict of opinion as to exactly what had been said. It is largely immaterial as it has been known for some time that the Ukraine government want to cap wheat exports at 5 MMT, and that 3.35 MMT of that has already been shipped. Adding support was a USDA announcement of 230 TMT of US wheat sold to "unknown" for 2012/13 delivery. Informa said that US all wheat plantings for the 2013 harvest will be 56.8 million acres, an increase of just over a million on this year.