Overnight markets - grains leap on dollar, crude

Grains are sharply higher on the overnight eCBOT market following crude oil and spurred on by a weak dollar.

Crude is near a two week high on speculation that the US government's rescue package for the ailing financial markets will help improve waning demand.

The Bush administration yesterday widened the scope of its $700 billion rescue plan to include assets other than mortgage- related securities. The changes may make the cost of the bailout significantly higher than originally planned.

The implications for the US balance sheet are immense and rather than fixing the problem, the whole thing has a look of one of the most costly cock-ups in history.

Bush appears to want to go out in some sort of blaze of glory leaving the incoming President to pick up the pieces.

And it looks like there will be a lot of pieces to pick up that's for sure.

Nogger's prediction: give it a couple of weeks and the US will be just as deep in the financial brown smelly stuff as before, only $1 trillion more in debt than before. How much good money will they continue to throw after bad if this one doesn't work?

It seems like not everyone agrees. Crude has leapt $14/barrel since early last week.

This morning beans are 38-39c steadier, corn up 9-10c and wheat up 17-18c. The dollar is taking a pasting which will make US grains more competitive on the export market, but apart from that nothing has fundamentally changed really.