CBOT Close
15/12/11 -- Soybeans: Jan 12 Soybeans closed at USD11.11 3/4, up 11 3/4 cents; Mar 12 Soybeans closed at USD11.21 1/4, up 11 1/4 cents; Jan 12 Soybean Meal closed at USD282.90, up USD0.70; Jan 12 Soybean Oil closed at 48.98, up 58 points. Weekly export sales of 468,600 MT were in line with trade expectations. Shipments were 1,008,300 MT with China once again taking the vast majority at 772,100 MT. The market bulls are desperate to get a weather story going in South America. Oil World dropped their Brazilian soybean crop forecast to 72.8 MMT, which falls in the middle of the range of 71.3-75.0 MMT that we have from other analysts. Funds bought 6,000 soybean contracts on the day.Corn: Mar 12 Corn closed at USD5.79, down 1 3/4 cents; May 12 Corn closed at USD5.87 3/4, down 1 1/2 cents. Weekly export sales of 504,700 MT plus a small amount of 2012/13 were in line with expectations. Funds sold an estimated 4,000 contracts of the only CBOT grain in which they still hold a significant long position. Ethanol margins have collapsed in the past couple of weeks. It will be interesting to see how domestic US demand for corn holds up once the tax credit is removed at the end of the year. Ukraine says it has just about finished bringing in it's biggest corn crop of all time by some considerable margin.
Wheat: Mar 12 CBOT Wheat closed at USD5.79 1/4, down 1 1/2 cents; Mar 12 KCBT Wheat closed at USD6.37 1/2, up 2 cents; Mar 12 MGEX Wheat closed at USD8.15 3/4, unchanged. Heavy rainfall in hard red winter wheat is improving crop prospects, say Martell Crop Projections. "Rainfall the past 2 weeks was particularly heavy in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, the top bread wheat states, and 2-4 times the normal amount. Typically, Great Plains rainfall tapers off late in the fall season, but conditions have been wet this season with an active subtropical jet stream," they add. Weekly export sales were fair at 318,400 MT, shipments of 539,300 MT caught the eye as being the best for six weeks.