Overnight markets

For once a relatively quiet session thus far with no particularly significant changes. Wheat on eCBOT is around a cent firmer at 8.30am, beans 1-4c lower and corn 3-4c easier. As I said yesterday I just don't buy into wheat suddenly becoming the strongest leg of the complex in Chicago. They cited rains delaying harvest in some areas last night as one reason for the market being firmer. Given that there is so much stuff in the silos over there some elevators are having to store wheat on the ground I really don't think harvest delays are significant do you?

It will be interesting to see what happens on LIFFE/Euronext later this morning, in recent sessions there have been signs that although the EU wheat markets feel "obliged" to follow Chicago higher, traders know that fundamentally the European outlook is bearish.

Fresh forecasts out of Hungary showed wheat output could be up 30% on the year at 5.25 million tons. The Agriculture Ministry also said Hungary's corn crop could be even better than the bumper crop of 2006. This follows projections out of France Tuesday for a 21% rise in winter barley production.