Chicago Recovers Most Of Monday's Losses
16/04/13 -- Soycomplex: A sense of calm in outside markets allowed the market to recover yesterday's losses. Oil World estimated Feb-April Chinese bean imports at 10.3 MMT down 25% from a year ago. They also pegged the South American soybean crop at 143.6 MMT versus the USDA's 148.75 MMT. They estimated the Brazilian crop at 81.3 MMT, unchanged from their previous estimate and versus the USDA estimate of 83.5 MMT. They have the Argentine bean crop at 48.5 MMT, also unchanged from their previous estimate and lower than the USDA's 51.5 MMT. Michael Cordonnier has the Brazilian bean crop at 81.5 MMT and the Argentine crop at 50.0 MMT, both are unchanged from his previous estimates. Fund buying was estimated at 6-7,000 soybean contracts on the day. May 13 Soybeans closed at USD14.11 1/2, up 16 1/2 cents; Jul 13 Soybeans closed at USD13.75 1/4, up 19 1/4 cents; May 13 Soybean Meal closed at USD401.30, up USD8.00; May 13 Soybean Oil closed at 48.98, up 80 points.
Corn: The corn market also gained as the capitulation of outside markets waned. Last night's news that US corn planting was only 2% complete as of Sunday night was supportive. Michael Cordonnier said that the USDA's US corn planting area estimate of 97.3 million acres was too high. He estimated non-planted US corn acres at 1-3 million due to spring planting delays, and said that in worst case scenario this could rise to 5-6 million, but emphasised that it was still too early for too much concern. He estimated the Brazilian corn crop at 75.0 MMT, up 1.0 MMT from previous his previous forecast. The Argentine corn crop was pegged at 24.0 MMT, unchanged from his previous estimate. He said that about 30% of the Argentine corn crop has been harvested. Weekly ethanol production data will be out tomorrow. Last week’s 854,000 barrels/day grind was the largest weekly total since June 2012. The bulls will be hoping for that run to continue. Funds were seen as net buyers of around 10-12,000 corn contracts on the day. May 13 Corn closed at USD6.63 1/4, up 16 1/2 cents; Jul 13 Corn closed at USD6.40 3/4, up 12 3/4 cents.
Wheat: Russia’s grain lobby said that they may loan Egypt money to buy grain from Russia. Russia sold 59,191 MT of intervention grain at their now regular twice weekly auction. That brings the total sold since sales began in October to 2.823 MMT. SovEcon said that Russian winter grain crop conditions had declined. Using a new rating system, with 100 being "normal" over recent years, they said that conditions fell from 96.4 last week to 95.1 this week. Commerzbank also said that Russia wheat quality is worse than expected. Russia’s grain ending stocks are estimated at 2 MMT and the grain lobby said that the government should keep these until the 2013 harvest. Bangladesh are tendering for 50 TMT of optional origin wheat for April/May shipment, India is the favourite to win that. Jordan are also back in the market for 100 TMT each of optional origin wheat and barley. Fund buying in CBOT wheat was estimated at 2-3,000 lots on the day. May 13 CBOT Wheat closed at USD7.03 1/2, up 9 3/4 cents; May 13 KCBT Wheat closed at USD7.41 3/4, up 9 1/4 cents; May 13 MGEX Wheat closed at USD8.09 3/4, up 11 3/4 cents.