Friday, September 30, 2016

"AM markets: grain markets cower as key US report looms"

Today's reports and next month's WASDE are the last reports before the Northern Hemisphere harvests are in so we're getting ready to turn our attention to natural gas again.
'And the seasons they go round and round...'

Last Chg
Corn 326-6-2-4
Soybeans 949-2-1-0
Wheat 397-2-1-6

From Agrimoney:
So will it or won't it?

That is, will the US Department of Agriculture's quarterly report on domestic grain inventories (as of the start of this month) prove a boulder or a pebble when it plops later in the waters of global grain markets at 17:00 UK time (11:00 Chicago time)?
"Historically the stocks reports result in some large price movements," said Joe Lardy at CHS Hedging.
However, Benson Quinn Commodities raised doubts about whether the data will produce such a reaction this time.
"The corn and bean stocks have already been traded," the broker said, meaning that the data has already been factored into prices.
"So I don't expect much surprise there, with market moving on and trading record production potential and increasing US stocks outlook."
Market forecasts
Still, any market reaction depends on exactly what numbers that investors have factored into prices.
For soybeans, traders forecast a figure of 201m bushels, 6m bushels higher than the USDA's current estimate, with corn inventories seen coming in at 1.754bn bushels, some 38m bushels higher than the existing estimate.
"Analysts are largely expecting US corn stocks will be revised higher due to lower feed use," said Tobin Gorey at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
 Any reaction will also depend on whether any addition to/subtraction from the existing stocks number would really matter.
Current USDA inventory numbers for both corn and soybean numbers are on the high side, compared with stocks seen earlier in the decade, implying that it would take a bigger divergence from expectations to cause a big price reaction.
Harvest progress vs yield
Still, there was a certain amount of trepidation around in grain markets in early deals, with December corn futures for December standing flat at $3.29 ¼ a bushel as of 09:30 UK time (03:30 Chicago time)....MORE