Early Call On CBOT

The overnights are lower with beans down around 5-7c, wheat 5c or so easier and corn off 2-3c. Crude oil is around half a dollar easier.

ABARE surprised the market with a 25.1 MMT estimate for this season's wheat crop, they also upped their export estimate sharply. Their production number is now close to their all-time record output, and their export estimate is the highest in more than a decade.

Better than normal monsoon rains this season mean that India are hoping for a record 82 MMT+ wheat harvest come March/April.

The Argy Ag Ministry peg this year's wheat crop at 12-13 MMT, up around 60-70% on last year.

The USDA crop progress report last night showed corn at 11% harvested, up 5 points from last week and well ahead of last year and the five year average. Corn rated mature was at 52%, 40 points ahead of last year and 20 points ahead of average. Good/excellent condition was down a point to 68%. The crop is clearly "well forward".

Meanwhile, they showed 38% of soybeans dropping leaves, up 19 points from last week, 22 points from last year and also ahead of average. Good/excellent also fell one point to 64%.

China only sold 14% of the corn they had on offer at their weekly government auction, that's down on last week's 19% take-up rate and miles below the 90%+ that was being witnessed a few months ago.

Japan is back in it's usual weekly wheat tender, shopping for 147,000 MT of mixed origin, of which 66,000 MT will be US.

Spec longs continue to drive the market, ignoring the bearish and seizing upon the bullish.

September contracts expire today, so there could be some strange front-end closes tonight.

Early calls on this afternoon's CBOT session: beans down 5-7c, corn down 2-3c, wheat down 4-5c.