Nogger's Blog

17/12/12 -- Soycomplex: Jan 13 Soybeans closed at USD14.96 1/4, up 1/4 cent; Mar 13 Soybeans closed at USD14.88 1/4, down 3 1/4 cents; Jan 13 Soybean Meal closed at USD455.40, down USD2.30; Jan 13 Soybean Oil closed at 49.79, down 20 points. Beans broke through the USD15/bu mark, but failed to hold at that level, which will be a set-back for the bulls. The very strong pace of early season US exports was underlined once more when the USDA announced the sale of 151,000 MT of soybeans to unknown destinations. Of that total, 91,100 MT is for delivery in 2012/13 and 60,000 MT for 2013/14 delivery. Much of Argentina got heavy rains over the weekend that will have disrupted corn and bean plantings once more. Even so the Argentine Ag Ministry now say that soybean planting is 73 percent complete vs 77 percent last year. On Friday the Rosario Grain Exchange estimated the Argentine soybean crop at 53 MMT versus the USDA's 55 MMT. In Brazil, Ag Rural upped their soybean production estimate by 0.3 MMT to a new record 82.2 MMT and versus the USDA's 81 MMT. Ag Rural said Brazil’s bean planting is 98% complete.

Corn: Mar 13 Corn closed at USD7.24, down 6 3/4 cents; May 13 Corn closed at USD7.27 1/2, down 6 1/4 cents. Weekly export inspections of 15 million bushels were at least an advance on last week's appalling 8 million, but still well short of the level required to come close to hitting the USDA target for 2012/13. The Rosario Grain Exchange estimate Argentine corn production at 24 MMT, well below the USDA's 27.5 MMT, although not the lowest number in the arena. Sinograin said that China's corn crop is closer to 198 MMT than the 208 MMT that the USDA now predict. Ukraine said that it has exported 5.46 MMT of corn to date in this marketing year. CFTC data from Friday shows spec money cutting their corn length by more than 50,000 contracts in the week through to last Tuesday night. They are estimated to have shed a further 4,000 lots today.

Wheat: Mar 13 CBOT Wheat closed at USD8.08, down 6 cents; Mar 13 KCBT Wheat closed at USD8.56 1/4, down 8 cents; Mar 13 MGEX Wheat closed at USD8.96 1/4, down 6 3/4 cents. Weekly export inspections of 16.355 million bushels were no better that average even if they did beat last week's total of 13.938 million. Ukraine said it had exported 13 MMT of grains so far this marketing year, an increase of 71% on year ago levels. Of that total 5.65 MMT is wheat with a further 190 TMT of wheat said to be at the ports waiting to load. The government are said to have agreed an "informal" limit of 5.8 MMT with exporters there. Ukraine’s December 1st wheat stocks are said to be 6.5 MMT compared to 8.2 MMT a month ago. The Rosario Grains Exchange cut their Argentine wheat production estimate to 9.5 MMT, which is 0.3 MMT lower than the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange's Thursday forecast and 2 MMT beneath that of the USDA. The latter's Argentine wheat export forecast of 7.5 MMT in 2012/13 looks increasingly unlikely.