I Predict The Unpredictable Will Or Might Happen, Unless It Doesn't

18/03/11 -- Nobody seems to know what to do at the end of an astonishingly volatile week. So many are opting for the "if in doubt do nowt" strategy. After a very strong opening European grains are slipping back slightly. Which may be a function of who'd want to sit on a large open position over this particular weekend?

The overnight Globex market is also a little off it's highs attained on the back of rumours that the early week slump in corn prices flushed China's COFCO out as a buyer. We did however see a spate of similar reports a couple of months back, and it all turned out to be baloney on that occasion.

Any orders over 100,000 MT have to be reported the next day to the USDA. The notion that they bought a significant volume in multiple lots of one cargo each from a dozen different sellers seems more than a tad far-fetched.

There's been no official news from the USDA on corn sales to China, or anybody else, so far today, although there was 110,000 MT of corn sold to "unknown" yesterday.

The early call on Chicago is going to be higher, where will it finish? Limit up, limit down or somewhere in between is my confident prediction.