The Morning Papers

04/12/12 -- The overnight grains are mixed with beans a couple of cents higher, corn around 2 cents easier and wheat down 3-4 cents.

CBOT wheat failed to hold onto yesterday's overnight gains, prompted by a strong showing in Egypt's weekend tender.

For wheat, weekly export inspections of 14.2 million bushels were about what the trade expected, but as with corn still lag the level required to meet USDA projections for the full season.

There's talk of a wetter outlook for the US Plains later in the week. If it does rain then we won't get any official word on how much it's helped winter wheat as the USDA have finished their weekly crop condition reports now until the spring.

Bangladesh seeks 50 TMT of optional origin wheat for Dec/Jan shipment - India will be the favourites to win that. Japan are looking for 193 TMT of mostly US wheat in it's regular weekly tender.

"Another week of dry weather in southern Russia has worsened drought in winter wheat. Only 13 millimetres of rainfall occurred in November against 38 millimetres normally. The 90-day rainfall was only 35% of normal in Rostov, 40-60% in Krasnodar and 65-70% in Stavropol -- the key winter wheat districts. Interestingly local sources claim less than 15% of wheat is in poor condition. A strong ridge of high pressure would prevail again this week blocking rainfall and causing abnormal warmth."

Further west/south, "at the same time, Ukraine and Turkey are expecting generous showers improving wheat potential, key wheat growing areas to the west of Russia's Southern District. Blocking high pressure would keep Southern Russia dry," say Martell Crop Projections.

IMEA say that soybean plantings in Mato Grosso, Brazil's top producing state, are now complete. Conab estimate Mato Grosso’s 2012/13 soybean area at 7.8 million hectares versus 6.9 million a year ago and place the state's soybean crop at 24.2 MMT versus 21.8 MMT a year ago.

Conab are out on Thursday this week with their December production numbers for Brazil. Before that we have StatsCanada out tomorrow with their final 2012/13 Canadian crop estimates.

Soybean availability in Brazil continues to tighten if exports are anything to go by. November shipments were down 71% on year ago levels to just 259 TMT, according to the Brazilian Ministry of Trade. Soymeal shipments fell 30% and soyoil exports by 45% versus Nov 2011, they add.