Nogger's Blog

01/11/16 -- Soycomplex: Beans closed sharply lower. South American weather is seen as beneficial for crop production for the next 2 weeks. Planting progress is slightly ahead of average in Brazil. Argentina is about normal. Ag Rural puts Brazil at 41% planted nationally versus only 31% a year ago and just ahead of the 5-year average of 40% complete. Dr Cordonnier says that Argentina is probably around 2-4% complete versus 5% on average at this time. The USDA put the September US crush at 138.25 million, in line with trade estimates. FCStone were reported to have increased their esimate on 2016 US soybean average yields from 52.5 bu/acre to a new record 52.8 bu/acre. Nov 16 Soybeans settled at $9.84 1/4, down 18 cents; Jan 17 Soybeans settled at $9.93 1/4, down 18 1/2 cents; Dec 16 Soybean Meal settled at $309.50, down $6.60; Dec 16 Soybean Oil settled at 34.85, down 32 points.

Corn: Corn closed lower despite the USDA announcing that private exporters had reported the sale of 212,344 MT of corn for delivery to Mexico during the 2016/17 marketing year under the daily reporting system. New monthly production figures from the US Energy Dept show August ethanol production set all-time records at 1022 thousand barrels a day. Dr Cordonnier estimated that corn planting in Argentina is 36% complete versus 41% a year ago, slowed by cool and wet conditions. Ukraine reported their 2016 corn harvest to be 63% complete at 15.84 MMT. Russia said that their corn harvest was 60.2% done at 9.7 MMT. The EU Commission were unchanged on their estimate for EU-28 corn production this year at 59.7 MMT, up 1% on a year ago. Yesterday's data from the USDA shows that a quarter of this year's US corn crop remains in the field, about what the market was expecting and around normal for this time of year. Weather forecasts are generally viewed as favorable this week, with above average temps and drier conditions to move this harvest on towards completion. Dec 16 Corn settled at $3.49, down 5 3/4 cents; Mar 17 Corn settled at $3.57 3/4, down 5 cents.

Wheat: Wheat closed lower on all three exchanges. The Russian wheat harvest is nearing completion at 98.1% done, for a crop of 75.8 MMT so far. They may have a shortage of the higher quality grades of wheat this year, but there will be plenty of mid to lower grade wheat looking for a home from this direction through 2016/17. China reportedly sold 473 TMT of the 2.84 MMT of wheat offered up by the government at auction today. Algeria are in the market for 50,000 MT of optional origin durum wheat. CBH lowered their estimate for the Western Australian wheat crop from 8.4 MMT to 7.8 MMT (and down sharply from the government's official figure of 10.5 MMT) due to frost damage being more widespread than earlier thought. Better prospects remain in the east of the country though. The EU Commission raised their estimates for this year's EU soft wheat and barley crops, pegging soft wheat up 400,000 MT from a month ago to 134.6 MMT, and increasing barley output by a similar amount to 60.0 MMT. In Kazakhstan final wheat production this year amounts to 17.8 MMT versus 14.6 MMT a year ago. Dec 16 CBOT Wheat settled at $4.14 1/4, down 2 cents; Dec 16 KCBT Wheat settled at $4.13 3/4, down 1 cent; Dec 16 MGEX Wheat settled at $5.19 1/2, down 7 1/4 cents.