Nogger's Blog

12/06/14 -- Soycomplex: Beans closed lower, especially at the front end, despite supportive old crop export sales. Once again, we can maybe best attribute this to fund liquidation of front-end longs ahead of first notice day. Weekly export sales of 86,700 MT of old crop and 403,300 MT of new crop were in line with trade expectations on the latter, and beat them on the former. Shipments themselves were 147,088 MT, taking the marketing year total to 43.08 MMT. Add on another 2 MMT of outstanding sales and we get total commitments of over 45 MMT versus a USDA forecast for the season of 44.225 MMT. The USDA made only minor changes to the world balance sheet yesterday, with production among all the major nations unchanged, ditto exports. World 2014/15 ending stocks were tweaked slightly higher to a record 82.9 MMT, a near 31% increase on this season. Macquarie estimated the 2014 US soybean crop at 3.682 billion bushels. Informa are due out tomorrow with their US 2014 acreage and production estimates. Last month they had the acreage at 82.1 million and production at 3.635 billion bushels. Jul 14 Soybeans closed at $14.15 1/4, down 30 1/4 cents; Nov 14 Soybeans closed at $12.12 1/4, down 8 1/2 cents; Jul 14 Soybean Meal closed at $469.20, down $13.10; Jul 14 Soybean Oil closed at 38.58, up 16 points.

Corn: The corn market finished with modest gains of around 2-3 cents. Weekly export sales of 409,700 MT of old crop and 105,500 MT of new crop, as with beans, were in line with trade expectations on the latter, and beat them on the former. Actual shipments of just over 1 MMT take the total exported so far this season to 34.84 MMT, which along with outstanding sales of 11.72 MMT take total commitments to 46.56 MMT versus a USDA forecast of 48 MMT for the season. South Korea's NOFI seeks 140,000 MT of optional origin corn for Dec-Jan shipment. Macquarie said that the USDA’s 2013/14 Chinese corn import estimate is too optimistic. The Buenos Aires Grains Exchange estimated Argentina’s 2013/14 corn crop at 25.0 MMT versus a previous estimate of 24.0 MMT. The latter figure is also the current one being used by the USDA. MDA CropCast raised their forecast for the Ukraine corn crop by 1.2 MMT from a week ago to 26.3 MMT. The USDA yesterday increased their outlook on Ukraine from 26 MMT to 27 MMT. Informa are due out tomorrow with revised US acreage and production estimates. Last month they had the 2014 US corn area at 91.6 million acres, with production at 13.935 billion bushels. The USDA will update their US 2014 acreage estimates at the end of the month. The USDA yesterday slightly raised their outlook for the world 2014/15 corn crop to 981 MMT, which is broadly similar to last season's record production. They see ending stocks rising from 169 MMT to over 182 MMT next season. Jul 14 Corn closed at $4.44, up 3 cents; Sep 14 Corn closed at $4.40, up 2 1/2 cents.

Wheat: The wheat market closed mixed, with Chicago and Minneapolis lower and Kansas a little higher. Weekly export sales came in at 570,100 MT. That was a bit better than expected, supported by continued good demand from Brazil who took 167,600 MT of that total. The figures showed that the US finished the old 2013/14 marketing year which closed on May 31 with exports of 30.1 MMT, falling short of USDA forecasts. Yesterday they lowered their expectations for US wheat exports in 2014/15 to 25.5 MMT from 26 MMT previously. MDA CropCast raised their forecast for the world wheat crop in 2014/15 by 5.2 MMT from last week, citing favourable crop conditions in Europe and China. SovEcon lowered their outlook on Russia's 2014/15 grain crop from 88-92 MMT to 87-90 MMT versus 92.4 MMT last year. They cut their estimate on Russia's wheat crop by 1 MMT to 49 MMT. Official Ministry estimates are still higher than this. FranceAgrimer estimated 2013/14 French soft wheat exports outside the EU at 12.0 MMT versus a previous estimate of 11.6 MMT. Egypt bought Russian and Romanian wheat in their tender. French and US wheat was priced out. UkrAgroConsult said that Ukraine's winter barley harvest has started couple of weeks earlier than last year. Informa are due to release their latest US acreage figures tomorrow. Last month they had the US all wheat area at 56.1 million acres. Jul 14 CBOT Wheat closed at $5.85 1/4, down 4 cents; Jul 14 KCBT Wheat closed at $7.05 1/2, up 1 1/4 cents; Jul 14 MGEX Wheat closed at $6.82, down 2 cents.