Yesterday corn and soybeans in Chicago, saw nearby contracts stay in the green while other prices further out softened.
Winter wheat prices found the most upside, meantime, with more than 2% gains by the close.
Spring wheat prices also firmed around 0.5%.
On macro markets, oil prices rose tis morning, on track to post big gains for the week, on worries about supply disruptions as energy companies began shutting in production in the Gulf of Mexico ahead of a potential hurricane forecast to hit on the weekend.
Thus Brent crude futures rose 98 cents, or 1.4%, to $72.05 a barrel at 05:42 GMT, after falling 1.6% on Thursday.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures climbed 93 cents, or 1.4%, to $68.35 a barrel, clawing back a 1.4% loss on Thursday.
For the week, Brent is on track for a rise of nearly 11% this week, its biggest weekly jump since June 2020.
WTI is headed for a weekly gain of nearly 10%, which would be its strongest rise since August 2020.
On Wall St., the Dow tilted 192 points lower to 35,213 yesterday, due in part to higher-than-expected jobless claims, although economic growth in Q2 came in at 6.6%, which was more encouraging.
Meantime, global shares held steady near record highs on Friday as investors caught their breath ahead of a much-anticipated speech by the U.S. Fed chief that could give clues about when the central bank will start tapering its bond-buying programme.
Europe’s pan-European STOXX 600 index, was last trading flat after MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.17%, capping its best week since February as Chinese markets cheered a burst of central bank liquidity.
Chinese blue chips, indeed, rose 0.45%, a reversal of recent weeks in which mainland stocks have weighed on the region, while Hong Kong’s benchmark rose 0.15%.
MSCI’s global share index, meantime, was flat and U.S. stock futures this morning were up 0.3%, suggesting fresh optimism after sentiment on Thursday was dented by a deadly attack in Afghanistan, and after the Federal Reserve’s more hawkish policymakers urged an end to stimulus.
The U.S. Dollar, on its part, firmed moderately.
Coming back on grains market, corn and soybean were still pulled down on Thursday by a rebound in the greenback and favorable precipitation which continues to sweep a large part of the Corn Belt.
Indeed, over the next three days, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin will continue to see ample rains, with some areas likely to see 3” or more between today and Monday, per NOAA’s latest 72-hour cumulative precipitation map.
The agency’s 8-to-14-day outlook predicts seasonally warm, wet weather for most of the central U.S. between September 2 and September 8.
Consequentially, operators are hesitant about estimating the upcoming soybean and corn harvest.
Meantime, China cancelled 135,000t old crop corn purchases which kept a lid on futures.
Wheat prices on the other hand, moved moderately higher, spurred by tightening global supplies and some lingering production concerns.
Meantime, US weekly wheat export sales, remain disappointing week after week (only 116 kt!).
Conversely, sales of corn (759 kt) and soybeans (1.75 Mt) were within the expected range.
Corn export shipments tilted 35% below the prior four-week average.
China was the No. 1 destination.
Soybean export shipments tracked 23% higher than the prior four-week average.
Mexico was the No. 1 destination.
Wheat export shipments climbed to a marketing-year high of 675,800 MT, up 14 percent from the previous week and besting the prior four-week average by 39%.
China was the No. 1 destination
USDA further announced the sale of 133 kt of US soybeans to China, 132 kt to an unknown destination, as well as 100 kt of corn to Colombia.
In this context, corn basis bids plummeted 50 cents lower at an Ohio river terminal and trended 2 cents higher at an Ohio elevator while holding steady elsewhere across the central U.S..
Soybean basis bids spilled 16 to 20 cents lower at three Midwestern locations, while holding steady elsewhere across the central U.S..
From Canada, for the Period August 17 to 23, 2021, harvest progressed to 29 per cent complete, up from 20 per cent last week and well over the five-year average of 12 per cent.
An additional 21 per cent of the crop is now swathed or ready to straight-cut, ahead of the five-year average of 16 per cent.
Ninety-three per cent of the winter wheat, 78 per cent of the fall rye, 76 per cent of the lentils, 81 per cent of the field peas, 42 per cent of the barley, 31 per cent of the durum, 23 per cent of the oats, 25 per cent of the spring wheat and six per cent of the canola has been combined.
An additional 30 per cent of canola has been swathed or is ready to straight-cut.
Harvest progress is most advanced in the southern regions.
Producers in the southwest region have 43 per cent combined, the southeast region 30 per cent, the west-central 27 per cent, the east-central 22 per cent, the northeast 25 per cent and the northwest 15 per cent.
Meantime, several large weather systems moved through the province last week, resulting in significant amounts of precipitation along with hail in some areas.
Indeed, the majority of crop damage this week was due to wind, heavy rainfall and hail.
Consequentially, more debate around Canadian production ahead of Stat Can which is becoming a race to the bottom.
USDA is sitting at 24 million tonnes (Mt) wheat production with the average trade guess at 22.6Mt.
While that doesn’t seem like a massive difference, the flow on to exports in this environment is nothing but supportive.
Moreover, the Canadian Department of Agriculture has an all-wheat production estimate of only 20.18 million tonnes against 35.19 million last year.
The drought since spring has therefore greatly penalized the country on soft wheat, the production of which is estimated at 16.35 million tonnes and at 3.83 million in durum wheat.
From South America, after struggles with hot, dry weather this season, Brazil’s Conab expects the country’s 2021/22 corn production to rebound nearly 34% higher, reaching an estimated 4.565 billion bushels.
Planted area is expected to grow by nearly 4% year-over-year, to 50.904 million acres.
Additionally, Brazil’s Conab is anticipating also a record soybean production in 2021/22, rising 3.9% year-over-year to 5.190 billion bushels.
Brazilian soybean plantings are expected to increase another 3.6% this coming season to reach 98.62 million acres.
From Argentina, the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange does not change its estimate of wheat production to 19 million tonnes.
Corn production is reported at 50.5 million tonnes.
On European market, wheat finally managed to rebound Thursday night after the International Grains Council, in turn, lowered its harvest estimates.
Really no news.
The IGC, indeed is lowering its estimate of world wheat production to 782 million tonnes, down 6 million tonnes from its estimate last month.
This is notably the result of the lowering of its estimate for Russia from 81 million tonnes to 75 million.
However, this is still higher than the USDA figure posted at the start of the month at just 72.5 million tonnes.
Canadian production is estimated by the IGC at 24.5 million tonnes.
In corn, the IGC leaves unchanged its estimate of world production at 1.202 billion tonnes.
On the other hand, the European Commission for its part has an estimate of net wheat production at 127.2 million tonnes against 127.7 estimated last month and 117.2 last year.
That would still be an 8.5% improvement over the prior year’s production, if realized.
Exports are estimated at 30.0 million tonnes against 27.3 million last year.
European barley production is estimated at 52.9 million against 52.6 estimated last month.
Rapeseed did not show much change yesterday, as did canola, with Canadian production which could only be between 14 and 15 million tonnes against 18.7 last year, the lowest level for 10 years.
From the Black Sea basin, Belarus has imposed a six-month grain export ban because of a poor, weather-hit harvest.
The country has completed the 2021 harvest, threshing 6.2 million tonnes of grain compared with 7.2 million tonnes in 2020.
The ban is applied to wheat, rye, corn and other types of grain and cereals.
Meantime, wheat prices in the Black sea area started to rise again, while there was some stability in corn.
The IGC is revising upwards its wheat production estimate for Ukraine to 32 million tonnes against 29.5 estimated last month.
The disappointment over yields in the Volga region is accentuated in Russia, with spring wheats which have suffered greatly from the water deficit in recent weeks.
From Australia, thousands of truckies entered a 24hr strike today, which will most likely affect food and fuel supplies around the country, in light of pay and conditions negotiations with logistics firm Toll Group breaking down.
Meantime, bits and pieces traded old crop through SA and along the east coast.
Protein in the northern market zone continued to find a bid.
Barley old crop firmed in Victorian sites for Sep/Oct.
Meantime, new crop markets again were quiet even if Chinese buying in new crop Australian wheat has been evident.
At this time of year, volumes are debatable but, based on export relativity, Australia is priced well in front of competing origins.
Wheat, indeed, was a touch softer, barley bids were firmer by $2-4/t.
Canola went for another run being up $8-10/t across the country.
About weather conditions, A cold start in parts of SA saw some cropping areas record temperatures into the negatives.
Though it may set back some flowering canola, with a large part of the SA crop later than usual, it is still a bit early for any damage.
Internationally, the Philippines passed on their tender for 168,000t of Sep/Oct wheat and then promptly re-tendered for 60,000t.
Pakistan purchased 160,000 t of milling wheat from optional origins in an international tender that closed earlier this week.
The grain is for shipment between mid-September and the end of October.
Tunisia has purchased an estimated 50 kt of barley at $ 321.24 / t C&F, and 50 kt of soft wheat at $ 351.33 / t C&F in an international tender that closed yesterday.
Japan purchased 3.0 million bushels of food-quality wheat from the United States and Canada in a regular tender that closed yesterday.
Of the total, 67% was sourced from the U.S.
The grain is for shipment in October.
Jordan issued a new international tender to purchase 4.4 million bushels of milling wheat from optional origins that closes September 1.
South Korea purchased 135,000 t of animal feed corn from optional origins in an international tender that closed earlier yesterday.
The grain is for arrival in between late October and early December.
We wish you a good day.
