Nogger's Blog

12/11/14 -- Soycomplex: Beans ended giving up around half of yesterday's gains at the end of a choppy session that saw trade both sides. "Meal was once again in the driver seat for the move rallying to new contract highs in the December contract before leading the market lower as profit taking developed at the top and rumours spread that a southeast poultry or hog feeder had booked a couple cargoes of South American meal," said Benson Quinn. The Rosario Grain Exchange fine-tuned their estimate for Argentine soybean plantings this year to 20.7 million hectares. The usual Thursday weekly export sales report are delayed for a day due to Tuesday's Veterans Day holiday. The trade is thinking that the recent run-up in prices will have led to a slowdown in soybean sales, and for meal sales to maybe come in negative. due to cancellations/switches. Nov 14 Soybeans closed at $10.48 1/4, down 18 1/4 cents; Jan 15 Soybeans closed at $10.47 3/4, down 16 1/4 cents; Dec 14 Soybean Meal ended at $395.00, down $5.60; Dec 14 Soybean Oil finished at 32.22, down 65 points.

Corn: The corn market ended around 3-4 cents firmer, aided by spillover support from wheat. "Considering the weakness in the soybean market the last half of the session, the corn market performed pretty well. If, and it’s a big if given the price action of the last couple of weeks, the soybean market did top out today, corn will have a difficultly holding these values for an extended period of time," said Benson Quinn. The sharp cold spell gripping the US this week could certainly disrupt the remainder of the 2014 corn harvest. The Rosario Grain Exchange estimated the 2014/15 Argentine corn crop at 21.5 MMT versus 24.8 MMT a year ago. Ukraine said that its corn harvest was 87% done at 23.5 MMT. Russia said that its corn harvest was 86.5% complete at 10.3 MMT. Russia said that its corn exports so far this season were 606 TMT. The usual Wednesday weekly ethanol production report is delayed until tomorrow due to the Tuesday holiday. Dec 14 Corn closed at $3.77 3/4, up 4 cents; Mar 15 Corn ended at $3.90 1/2, up 4 cents.

Wheat: The wheat market closed sharply higher on ideas that the extremely cold weather on the Plains, combined with the lack of snow cover, could do some damage to newly planted US winter wheat. Egypt said that it has enough wheat bought to last it until March, which is just before their 2015 harvest is expected to begin. That doesn't rule them out of tendering again soon though. GASC have only bought 2.19 MMT of wheat for delivery in 2014/15 so far, an unusually small amount for them. Credit problems could be an issue there. Russia's wheat harvest is said to have reached 61.8 MMT off 96.8% of the planned area. Russian winter grain plantings, mostly wheat, are said to be complete on 16.6 million hectares versus only 14.8 million this time a year ago. Question marks remain over the health of what has gone into the ground though, and the Ag Ministry aren't planning to update us on that until the new year. Dec 14 CBOT Wheat is at $5.42 3/4, up 17 1/2 cents; Dec 14 KCBT Wheat is at $5.99 1/4, up 20 3/4 cents; Dec 14 MGEX Wheat is at $5.81 1/4, up 14 1/2 cents.