eCBOT Close, Early Call

The overnight markets closed strongly with beans around 20 cents higher, wheat up around 11-12 cents and corn 4-6 cents firmer. Jan soybeans finally broke back above USD10.50 in overnight trade.

Outside markets are supportive again with gold hitting new all-time highs and crude oil around a dollar firmer. Bullish news from China is that year-on-year imports of everything from soybeans to coal were sharply higher in October.

Fund buying has been a feature the last few Mondays, it would be no surprise at all to see that trend continue today.

Argentina's wheat crop is getting smaller now estimated at only 7 MMT by the Ag Ministry, corn acreage there is also falling, which means that bean area is rising - but that won't be much use to China for some time yet.

There seems to have been a subtle shift in attitude in the market, from fearing a large South American soybean crop to needing one.

The USDA will report tonight on the progress made with wrapping up the US soybean harvest and turning into the home straight on the corn front. The corn harvest was 54% complete as of Sunday 15th Nov.

They will also let us know how much progress has been made with winter wheat plantings, Illinois in particular will be under scrutiny, which was only running at 45% as of Sunday 15th, with 92% normal for this time of year.

Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: corn up 4-6, beans up 15-20, wheat up 10-12.