Chicago Grains Drift Lower

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 09:21 | Categorized as

18/11/14 -- Soycomplex: Beans closed lower, erasing most of yesterday's gains in "turnaround Tuesday" style. Talk continues of US meal sales being switched to South American origin material. Abiove estimated Brazil’s 2014/15 bean crop at a record 91.0 MMT, unchanged from their previous estimate. JP Morgan are suggesting that the USDA may have overstated the US soybean area for this year's harvest by around 1.4 million acres. "This could be good explanation for why this harvest of record corn and soybean crop production has not severely stressed grain elevator storage and pipelines have been much tighter than market had anticipated given the astonishing yield reports the market has seen," suggested Benson Quinn Commodities.The USDA announced 100,647 MT of US beans sold to unknown for 2014/15 shipment. Jan 15 Soybeans closed at $10.23 1/4, down 13 cents; Mar 15 Soybeans closed at $10.31, down 13 cents; Dec 14 Soybean Meal closed at $378.00, down $9.10; Dec 14 Soybean Oil closed at 32.65, up 20 points.

Corn: The corn market closed around 5-6 cents lower. "Corn futures were lower overnight and eventually traded through the 10 day moving average level of 374 that appeared to be defended by the institutional trader early in the session," said Benson Quinn. US weather conditions have turned cold as the remainder of the 2014 US corn harvest concludes. "Midwest temperatures last week plummeted to 30.3 F, the daily average of highs and lows. This was the coldest week in the major corn states since March 8 and 15 degrees colder than the previous week. Harvesting is moving rapidly toward completion, the soybean harvest now 94% complete and corn 89% finished. Sub-freezing temperatures have hardened fields promoting very rapid progress," said Martell Crop Projections. The Russian 2014 corn harvest is more than 91% done at 10.9 MMT. The Ukraine corn harvest is also nearing completion and currently stands at 25.2 MMT. JP Morgan estimate that the USDA have overstated this year's US corn planted area by around 2.1 million acres. Dec 14 Corn closed at $3.72, down 5 1/2 cents; Mar 15 Corn closed at $3.85, down 5 1/2 cents.

Wheat: The wheat market drifted lower, reflecting that US prices have maybe got a little ahead of themselves. Certainly yesterday's poor weekly export inspections would indicate that. So too would news of French feed wheat heading to the US this week. Tunisia, Qatar and Jordan are all tendering for wheat, but US origin material is unlikely to feature in any of it. Iraq said that ISIS has stolen more than 1 MMT of grain in the north of the country and taken it to neighbouring Syria. The Ukraine Ag Ministry said that the country has exported 14.0 MMT of grains so far this season. The head of the Ukraine Grain Association said that the country had doubled it's grain output in the last 10 years, and if it could match US corn yields and those of France for wheat and barley then they could further double their production capacity and produce 120 MMT of grains annually. Russia said that its 2014 grain harvest now stands at 109.9 MMT, including 62.2 MMT of wheat off 97% of the planned area. Winter grains have now been planted on 16.8 million hectares in Russia, exceeding the Ag Ministry's forecast. Dec 14 CBOT Wheat closed at $5.49, down 2 3/4 cents; Dec 14 KCBT Wheat closed at $5.93 1/2, down 3 cents; Dec 14 MGEX Wheat closed at $5.78 1/2, down 5 cents.