eCBOT Close, Early Call

The overnight grains closed with beans around 16 cents firmer and corn & wheat 3 cents or so higher.

Crude oil was higher testing USD80/barrel again after yesterday's data from the API showed a surprising 4.4 million barrel decrease in stocks last week. The US Energy Dept are out later today with their estimate.

The US Consumer Price Index has just come out at 0.3% growth at the end of October, a little better than the 0.2% that the trade expected.

Outside markets continue to lend support with gold hitting record highs again and copper hitting a new 14 month high. The FTSE 100, Dax and CAC are all a bit firmer in European trade, and Wall Street is expected to open likewise.

Bangladesh bought 100,000 MT of Ukraine wheat earlier in the week, and announced a new tender for 60,000 MT of wheat overnight.

A trickle of imported wheat has started arriving in India's southern ports in containerised shipments, having cleared customs satisfactorily, the Roller Flour Mills’ Federation of India would like the government to now open up the way for larger bulk imports.

A report on Reuters suggests that Black Sea wheat is plagued by bug damage this season and buyers like Egypt might be forced to look elsewhere for grain that meets thier stringent quality criteria.

Argentina received valuable heavy rainfall over the weekend that replenished field moisture for soybean planting in Cordoba and Santa Fe. However, a stubborn drought is hanging on in Western Buenos Aires and La Pampa, say Martell Crop Projections.

Political problems caused wheat plantings there to fall to the lowest on record this year, corn seedings are also seen around 25% lower this year with farmers hanging their hats on an increased soybean acreage. The crop is far from made yet however, and Oil World have dropped their soybean production estimate by 4 MMT already this month citing drought and low seed quality. They currently peg the crop 5 MMT lower than the USDA's recent guesstimate at 48 MMT.

There are no such problems in Brazil, if anything they've had too much rain, which has caused wheat production to be slashed by around 20% from the 6 MMT expected earlier in the season to circa 4.75 MMT now.

It's early days for soybeans, but most analysts see a record 63-64 MMT output in 2010 as things stand at the moment. That harvest will start in just one months time in some places.

Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: corn up 2-4, beans up 13-15, wheat up 3-5.