Nogger's Blog

30/10/15 -- Soycomplex: Beans closed higher on the day, but lower for the week. Bean planting in Brazil remains significantly retarded. AgRural say that the crop is 31% sown, up from 20% a week ago but still well behind 42% on average. Mato Grosso is said to only be 36% complete versus 66% on average at this time. Demand remains strong. The USDA reported a sale of 120,000 MT of US soybeans to China for delivery in the 2015/16 marketing year under the daily reporting system. CNGOIC estimated Chinese soybean imports will climb to 22 MMT during Q4 of 2015, up 18% from Q4 in 2014. The trade is thinking that US soybean 2015/16 ending stocks will not ultimately be as high as current USDA predictions. This has been the case in 16 of the last 21 years, according to one analyst. The market is expecting the US 2015 bean harvest to be around 90% done on Monday. Nov 15 Soybeans settled at $8.83 3/4, up 5 cents; Jan 16 Soybeans settled at $8.85 3/4, up 5 1/2 cents; Dec 15 Soybean Meal settled at $304.40, up $2.80; Dec 15 Soybean Oil settled at 28.20, up 32 points. For the week that put front month beans 6 3/4 cents lower, with meal down 70 cents and oil off 37 points.

Corn: The corn market closed around a couple of cents or so firmer. Concerns over late planting of soybeans in Brazil could ultimately have a negative impact on safrinha corn sowings. An Argentine economic research firm, said to be the only one of the pollsters there to accurately predict last Sunday's election results, say that a victory for opposition leader Macri is 70% likely. Macri is the mayor of Buenos Aires, which has almost 40% of the Argentine electorate vote, according to the FT. Those voters that opposed the front-runner in Argentina’s presidential election, Scioli, are more likely to side with Macri in the run-off, they say. That is seen as leaning bearish for the market in general, as a Macri victory potentially brings more Argentine agri-commodities onto the world market, assuming that he keeps his promises on export taxes and quotas. Israel bought 125 TMT of optional origin corn in a tender, which will probably end up being Black Sea material. Ukraine's corn harvest is 74% done at 15.96 MMT. Russia's is 73.6% done at 10.2 MMT. The French corn harvest was reported at 75% complete as of Monday, up from 58% done a week ago and versus 52% this time last year. Dec 15 Corn settled at $3.82 1/4, up 2 1/4 cents; Mar 16 Corn settled at $3.91 1/2, up 1 3/4 cents. Dec 15 was 2 1/2 cents higher for the week.

Wheat: The wheat market closed around 5-7 cents higher across the three exchanges. The Buenos Aires Grain Exchange estimated this year's Argentine wheat crop at only 9.5 MMT, a 16% decline on a year ago, and they are using one of the more bullish planted area estimates. The lowest production level in recent years was 9.3 MMT in 2012, and prior to that it was 8.6 MMT in 1995. They aren't the only southern hemisphere country who's wheat crop is in toruble. "Australia wheat prospects have worsened in October with increased heat and moisture stress, especially in New South Wales," say Martell Crop Projections. "A new satellite image for October 28 confirms much worse vegetation than 4 weeks ago in all the main wheat states, but especially New South Wales. The state is Australia’s second largest wheat state behind Western Australia, accounting for 30% of national wheat production. Strong drying in New South Wales, and eastern Australia at large, may be linked to the El Niño climate anomaly," they add. EU soft wheat export licences so far this season are now running 30% behind the pace of a year ago, yet the USDA currently predicts these to only decline less than 7% season-on-season. Dec 15 CBOT Wheat settled at $5.22, up 7 cents; Dec 15 KCBT Wheat settled at $4.93 3/4, up 5 1/2 cents; Dec 15 MGEX Wheat settled at $5.20 1/2, up 5 1/2 cents. For the week, Chicago wheat was up 2 1/4 cents, Kansas was up 18 1/4 cents and Minneapolis rose 12 1/2 cents.