Early Call On Chicago

19/04/12 -- The overnight gains rebounded from last night's losses to pretty much take us back to where we were on Tuesday. Beans finished 14-16 cents higher, with wheat up 8-9 cents and corn 10-13 cents firmer.

The USDA's weekly export sales report gave us 365,900 MT for old crop wheat and 76,300 MT for new crop, a bit below expectations for sales of 450-650 TMT.

Corn sales were poor at 300,400 MT old crop and net sales reductions of 2,400 MT for new crop versus trade ideas for sales of 600-950 TMT.

Soybean sales were strong at 374,300 MT old crop and 845,000 MT new crop. China took 127,200 MT old crop and 615,000 MT new crop. Expectations were for sales of a combined 750 TMT - 1.1 MMT.

In amongst the corn details was a small 15,000 MT sale to China, not the widely rumoured kind of volume that has supposedly been done.

Once again we see soybeans setting themselves up to be the leader. To reinforce that view the USDA have also reported the further sale of 110,000 MT of new crop soybeans to China under the daily reporting system.

Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: corn up 10-12 cents, wheat up 8-10 cents, soybeans up 14-16 cents.