eCBOT Close, Early Call

The overnight grains closed higher with beans up around 5 cents, wheat 3-4 cents higher and corn 2-3 cents firmer.

The dollar is a little firmer and crude oil is down around half a dollar.

Data released yesterday showed that crude stocks rose in the US last week, despite US refineries running at less than 78% capacity, the lowest utilisation in a hurricane-free period since 1990. Given that temperatures in the US have been very cold this past few weeks, what does that tell us about demand?

The USDA's weekly export sales report was below expectations for soybeans, but in line with ideas for wheat and corn.

Corn gets a shot in the arm from news that the Environmental Protection Agency has been leaned on, and suddenly decided to re-analyse the way it ascertains whether corn ethanol beats gasoline’s carbon emissions by 20%. It's now decided that it does, which means that corn ethanol now has the door open to potentially exceed the current 15 billion gallon limit.

South American corn and soybean crops are getting bigger, say Informa, much bigger.

Iraq bought "at least" 700,000 MT of wheat yesterday say the newswires. An estimated 300,000 MT of that came from Canada, with the US getting 100,000 MT away themselves. The remainder may have consisted of Russian, Australian and German wheat it seems, although exact details are a little sketchy.

Agri-food Canada peg the upcoming 2010 Canadian wheat crop at 24.7 MMT, down 6.8% on last year, mainly due to a sharp decrease in durum acreage.

Japan purchased 85,000 MT of mostly US wheat in it's usual routine Thursday tender.

Egypt are also out shopping again too, they won't find any shortage of willing suitors. Russia and Kazakhstan look the favourites once again.

Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: corn called 1 to 2 higher; soybeans called 2 to 5 higher; wheat called 1 to 3 higher.

Given the strength being displayed by the dollar this afternoon, I will be surprised to see things close in positive territory myself.