Nogger's Blog

03/08/11 -- The overnight grains were maybe a little bit of a let down for the bulls. Follow though activity on corn was limited after last night's limit up close and wheat and soybeans also slipped away into the red by the close of play.

Outside markets aren't helping, with crude down more than a dollar yesterday and losing a further 60c or so today to currently stand at just over USD93/barrel. MasterCard say that US drivers have bought less gas now for nineteen weeks on the trot.

The US Commerce Department said yesterday that consumer spending fell for the first time in nearly two years in June.

Employment data will be under the microscope this week after the percentage of US citizens without a job rose to 9.2% in June.

America isn't the only one with problems as the European debt crisis now threatens to engulf Italy and Spain.

Fast forward to the fundamentals...

Corn yields in the US are now looking like 5-7bpa lower than the USDA's current July estimate. Soybean yields may be a bushel or so lower.

Russia meanwhile carries on in it's own sweet way, having exported a record volume of grain for the month of July last month it now has it's sights set on an all-time record for August. Not only that but the Russian Grain Union says that they might export up to 25 MMT in 2011/12, almost double the amount that the USDA have them factored in for.

Prices of Russian wheat are so low that it could almost be shipped to France and then re-exported to Egypt at less money than current EU offers!

Ukraine has already harvested more wheat and barley than the USDA have them down to produce this year at 20.5 MMT of wheat and 8.5 MMT respectively.

Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: corn flat to 2c lower, wheat down 8-10c, beans down 3-5c.