Morning Grain Comments

CURRENT TREND: Lower REASON: Contrary Tuesday price action once again, with little support from USDA Crop Progress

FOMC MEETING TODAY/TOMORROW, EXPORT SALES @ 7:30 AM THURSDAY

MORNING TRIVIA: Washington, D.C. is granted the same number of electoral votes as the least populous state, which has always totaled ____

MARKET HEADLINES

• Quick Editorial: last week’s “turnaround Tuesday” turned a lower Monday
  into a strong week, will this week be the opposite? Interesting to see the overnight
  soy decline led by the back end, contrary to recent gains led by the front
  end, though unsurprising given supply issues to be sorted out moving forward
• Taiwan flour millers bought a combined 104k tonnes of U.S. wheat as
  planned today, from Toepfer and for Nov-Dec delivery; prices ranged from
  $345/tonne (SWW) to $388/tonne (HRW) to $391/tonne (DNS).
• Ukraine’s Ag Min reported grain exports at 7.65 MMT from July 1 to Oct 22,
  up 73% from last year’s pace; wheat exports made up 3.82 MMT of that, with
  barley at 1.51 MMT and corn at 2.22 MMT. 11.59 MMT of grain has been
  contracted for export so far this year; Ukraine is looking to export 20 MMT
  total in ‘12/13, despite the (roughly) 5 MMT export cut-off on by mid-Nov.
• The United Nations sees Iraq importing a record 5.3 MMT of cereals in
  2012/13 (July-June), including 3.7 MMT of wheat and 1.3 MMT of rice;
  however the wheat number in and of itself is steady (or even slightly lower)
  than imports from the last five seasons. The FAO sees the country’s 2012
  cereal harvest down 21% from 2011, and down 7% from the five-year average
  production, with wheat down 12% from last season.
• The USDA reported the national corn harvest at 87% complete as of Sunday
  night, up eight points on the week and still way ahead of 60% last year and
  the 49% five-year average pace; soybean harvest came in at 80% done, up 9%
  on the week and only slightly ahead of 77% LY and the 69% 5YA. 81% of
  the winter wheat crop was planted this week, up 10% from last week and basically
  in line with 79% LY and the 80% 5YA, while emergence of the crop
  rose 13% to 49% this week, compared to 51% LY and 56% on average.
• Export Inspections (mln bu): This Week / Estimates / Last Week
  Corn: 9.6 / 17-25 / 17.2 Beans: 61.4 / 40-50 / 58.3 Wheat: 16.4 / 10-16 / 7.0

Morning Grain Comments-10.23.12