The Morning Vibe

18/06/13 -- It's a turnaround Tuesday sort of a day for beans, which are currently 2-4 cents higher in overnight Globex trade, wheat is 4-5 cents firmer and corn mixed a cent or so either side. It looks like a bit of consolidation might be in order today following recent declines.

There was no corn planting estimate from the USDA last night, corn emergence was at 92% versus 100% last year and 97% normally. The soggy northern states of Wisconsin (75% emerged versus 96% normally), North Dakota (81% vs 94%) and Minnesota (86% vs 99%) are notable laggards. Good/excellent conditions improved one point from last week to 64%. Iowa is 16% poor/very poor, up 2 points from 14% a week ago. Illinois is 11% poor/very poor, down 2 points from 13% last week.

Soybeans are 85% planted versus 91% normally. Again the northern states stand out with Wisconsin only 72% done versus 97% normally, North Dakota is 87% against 96% normally, Minnesota is 87% compared to 99% on average. North Carolina is also sluggish at 57% done versus 74% normally. Soybean emergence is 66% versus 80% normally. Good/excellent is 64% in the first ratings of the season (versus 56% this time last year).

Winter wheat harvesting is only 11% done compared to 25% normally and 51% a year ago. The crop is 89% headed versus 91% normally. Good/excellent conditions in winter wheat were unchanged at 31%, poor/very poor was up a point on last week to 43%. In Texas 75% of the crop is rated poor/very poor, in Colorado it's 72%, in South Dakota it's 55%, in Oklahoma it's 53%, in Nebraska it's 52% and in Kansas it's 45%.

Spring wheat plantings have almost caught up at 92% done versus 97% normally. A better week with a bit of sun sees good/excellent conditions amongst spring wheat jump from 62% to 68%, although that's still behind 76% a year ago. Spring wheat emergence is at 84% versus 94% normally.

The Russian harvest is off to a good start, with Reuters reporting early average yields at 5.43 MT/ha in Krasnodar, up 32%. In Stavropol they are said to be up 78% at 3.8 MT/ha and in Adygeya they're up 35% at 3.88 MT/ha.

The Ukraine harvest is also underway, with average early yields at 2.25 MT/ha, up 37% versus 1.64 MT/ha this time last year. Yields should improve further as the harvest progresses west and north.

New crop French milling wheat deld Rouen (July) is quoted at EUR192/tonne, circa GBP163.50/tonne.

Watch out for the Fed's monetary policy statement tomorrow for hints at how and when it will scale down its pace of bond purchases, currently said to be running at around USD85 billion/month. That could give the dollar the collywobbles and might knock the stock market as well.

The jungle drums are suggesting that China may have used this latest price dip on wheat to top up with a bit more US SRW wheat out of the west coast.