Morning Snippets
29/05/13 -- The overnight Globex grains are mostly a little lower, with wheat down 3-4 cents of so, and beans and corn down 1-3 cents.
London wheat sees Nov 13 down GBP0.25/tonne in early trade with Paris wheat around a euro easier.
Wheat looks to be continuing to grind lower. US wheat will soon be under harvest pressure even if last night's USDA report showed 60% of the US winter wheat crop was headed versus 72% normally and 85% a year ago.
Crop conditions aren't great though, the percentage of winter wheat rated very poor rose from 21% last week to 23%, far worse than 6% this time last year. A further 19% of the crop is rated as poor. Good/excellent was unchanged on last week at 31%.
Spring wheat is 79% planted versus 86% normally, with emergence at 42% versus 66% normally.
Corn planting has astonishingly almost caught up with the 5 year average pace of 90% at 86% complete. Notable laggards are Wisconsin at 64% done (versus 85% on average), Minnesota at 82% (vs. 95%) and Iowa at 85% (vs. 98%). Others are actually ahead of normal like Indiana (86% vs. 77%) and Ohio (89% vs. 71%). Corn emergence at 54% isn't too far behind the 5 year average of 67% under the circumstances.
Notable soybean planting laggards are Iowa at 40% done (83% on average), Minnesota (42% vs. 76%), Mississippi (46% vs. 88%) and Wisconsin (29% vs. 60%). One or two are ahead of schedule such as Ohio (70% vs. 49%) and Indiana (60% vs. 49%).
A wet forecast for the Plains has Oklahoma forecast to receive 1.5-1.8 inches of rain in the next 5 days, with central Kansas in for up to 1.75 inches. This should be of some benefit to later maturing winter wheat and newly planted corn there.
In other news the Ukraine Ministry say that spring grain plantings there are more or less done at 99% of the planned area. This includes 4.77 million hectares of corn, which is up 9% from last year's 4.37 million ha, and I'm pretty sure that is a record area.
An article on Reuters suggests that congestion at Brazil’s Santos port is being blamed on new truck rules which prevent drivers from parking in the port at night. "Lines of parked trucks extended as much as 50 kilometres (31 miles) on the Anchieta highway" leading into Santos, they report.
Record high wheat imports in 2012/13 mean that the UK's ending stocks will be the highest since 2009/10, say the HGCA.
The eight-day Australian Bureau of Meteorology weather forecast shows excellent and timely rainfall of 20-100mm for South Australia, Victoria and NSW.
The pound is threatening to slip back below 1.50 against the dollar for the first time since mid-March on ideas that the BoE will continue to ease policy whilst the Fed is looking to cut back on its stimulus.