Quiet Day, Quiet Week, So Far

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 10:12 | Categorized as

18/12/12 -- The overnight grains are mostly a little lower, with beans down 6-8 cents, wheat mostly 1-2 cents weaker and corn 2 cents lower to 1 cent firmer.

The pound is up to it's best levels against a weak dollar since late September, and not far off breaking through the 1.63 mark - we haven't spent any length of time up there for 16 months.

Fresh news is pretty thin on the ground, with the trade already looking decidedly "holiday-ish".

The Australian wheat harvest is said to be about halfway done, and ABARES 22.3 MMT and the USDA's 22 MMT estimates are thought to be optimistic.

Japan is shopping for 121 TMT of mostly US wheat in a routine tender to be concluded Thursday.

The US Southern Plains got some light/moderate rain over the weekend. "Winter wheat in western Kansas and west Texas received .25 - .50 inch of precipitation Friday with a storm that moved northeast....Stormy conditions are expected to continue this week with .50 to .75 inch of additional precipitation. Rain and snow showers would target the central Great Plains and Midwest in a wide swath from Kansas and southern Nebraska eastward into Illinois and Indiana," say Martell Crop Projections.

Monsanto say that Paraguay could have a record 8.6 MMT soybean crop in 2012/13 if the weather remains co-operative. The USDA currently estimate 7.75 MMT. Blimey, the USDA on the low side, that's a first.

Militant French farmers apparently dumped 20 tonnes of shit outside government offices in Rouen yesterday in protest against what they an unfair Nitrates Directive. They then planted a Christmas tree on top of the shit heap before handing the rest of it out in plastic bags to unsuspecting passers-by to take home an put on their gardens. Class.