Morning Snippets

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 11:21 | Categorized as

18/04/13 -- The overnight market sees beans 6-7 cents higher on old crop and 2-3 cents firmer on new crop. Globex wheat is up 5-6 cents and corn flat to up 1 1/2 cents. London and Paris wheat are mixed, corn is lower and rapeseed is adding to yesterday's sharp gains, up around 3 euros.

Reuters are reporting that the Brazilian dock workers strike lined up for today now isn't going ahead.

Toepfer have estimated the German 2013 wheat crop at 22.87 MMT versus their figure of 22.3 MMT for last year.

An astonishing 95% of the Upper Midwest is covered by snow, with an average depth of over 10 inches, according to my chums at World Ag Weather. See image link here

Estimates for this afternoon's weekly export sales report from the USDA are: Wheat 200-450 TMT; Corn 250-500 TMT; Beans 400-700 TMT; Meal 100-250 TMT; Bean oil 0-15 TMT.

The KazTAG News Agency estimates grain production in Kazakhstan this year at "at least" 15.2 MMT. That would be more than 55% up on last year.

Reuters report that Qatar is to buy USD3 billion worth of Egyptian government bonds, and that Libya is to extend Egypt a USD2 billion 5-year interest free loan. Whether that means that they will be back in the wheat market soon remains to be seen.

UK retail sales fell 0.7% in March, with non-food sales down 4% - the largest monthly drop in at least 3 years - say the BBC. The pound is a bit weaker on the news.

In China 17 people have now died from the bird flu, out of 82 reported cases.

French analysts Strategie Grains have cut their forecast for EU-27 (excluding new boys Croatia) soft wheat production this year by 0.5 MMT to 130.0 MMT, led by a 0.3 MMT reduction for the UK (yeah, and the rest I hear you cry - now forecast at 11.8 MMT). The extra 0.2 MMT reduction comes via Denmark and Spain. Corn production is increased 0.5 MMT to 64.6 MMT

MDA CropCast have cut their 2013/14 world wheat production estimate to 676.2 MMT, down 8.4 MMT from last week due to acreage reductions and expected dryness in the US Plains. Their preliminary 2013/14 US corn production estimate is 13.302 billion bushels, down 122 million bushels from last week due to expected stress in western belt areas this summer.