Main Chicago Markets End Lower On The Day And For The Week

17/07/15 -- Soycomplex: Beans closed lower on the day and for the week. Weather forecasts for the week ahead are developing a more normal look to them. There's a feeling that crop ratings should be unchanged in Monday's crop progress report, and a few suggesting that a small increase in good to excellent could be on the cards. The latest Commitment of Traders report shows fund money adding to their net long position for the week through to Tuesday night. They've probably lightened the load a little since then. Lack of new crop export demand is grabbing a few headlines. Chinese new crop US soybean export purchases are said to be only 2.4 MMT versus 7.0 MMT this time last year. They're said to have been active buyers of South American product in the past couple of weeks. Reports of South American meal sales into the US lend a bearish slant. I'd look for further choppy trade to continue through the rest of the month, and into the key yield-determining month for beans of August. Currently it still seems that crop conditions are extremely varied across the US. A huge area from Kansas, through Missouri, into Illinois, Indiana and onto Ohio and Michigan sees good to excellent soybean ratings between 12 percentage points (in Michigan) and 45 points (Missouri) down on where they were a year ago. Further north/east things look better. Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakota's all have good to excellent ratings in the 70-80's, and most of those states are seeing better ratings compared to this time last year. Aug 15 Soybeans closed at $10.14 3/4, down 4 1/4 cents; Nov 15 Soybeans closed at $10.06 3/4, down 4 1/4 cents; Aug 15 Soybean Meal closed at $361.10, down $2.50; Aug 15 Soybean Oil closed at 31.78, up 32 points. For the week, Aug 15 beans were down 17 cents, and Nov 15 was down 15 1/2 cents. Aug 15 meal was up $5.50 compared to last Friday and Aug 15 oil was down 64 points.

Corn: The corn market closed with near 10 cent losses. US weather conditions are improving. The market will be wondering what the USDA will do with crop ratings on Monday night. The general consensus is for corn to be unchanged at 69% good to excellent, but the USDA have surprised the market the last couple of weeks by holding them unchanged when small reductions were anticipated. Could they now start to nudge them a bit higher? That notion may have encouraged some book-squaring today. The latest Commitment of Traders report has fund money increasing their long to over 200k contracts for the week through to Tuesday night. Temperatures are forecast in the 90’s today, tomorrow and into the second half of next week across the northern plains and corn belt. That could be just what the doctor ordered for crops that have got plenty of moisture at their disposal. Elsewhere, FranceAgriMer cut the proportion of the French corn crop rated good to very good by 4 percentage points to 67% today, down from 84% this time last year, as heat and dryness there takes it's toll on corn. The proportion of the crop at the silking stage was up from 18% a week ago to 54%, far higher than 22% this time last year. Ukraine continue to export corn at a brisk pace. Their total grain exports so far this year are 939 TMT, with over half of that volume (502 TMT) being corn. There's a further 164 TMT of grains already loaded waiting to go, taking total exports so far this season to 1.1 MMT. Quality issues with this year's rain-affected US wheat crop could see more of that heading into the feed sector, in direct competition with corn. The EU said that they'd issued 64 TMT worth of corn export licences so far this season, but authorised 348 TMT worth of corn imports. China only sold 65 TMT of the more than 5 MMT of corn stocks offered up at auction this week. There are some reports of Brazilian corn being exported to the US. Sep 15 Corn closed at $4.20 1/4, down 9 3/4 cents; Dec 15 Corn closed at $4.31 1/4, down 9 3/4 cents. Sep 15 corn was 14 1/2 cents lower on the week, Dec 15 lost 13 3/4 cents.

Wheat: The wheat market closed lower on the day and for the week. Lack of export interest continues to be the thorn in the side of US wheat. Reports of neighbouring Mexico buying French wheat in preference to US material hardly inspires confidence that the US will achieve a 15% increase in foreign sales this year, as the USDA currently predict. The EU has issued 937 TMT worth of soft wheat export licences in the past two weeks, some 47% more than export sales reported by the USDA. Algeria were said to have bought at least 250,000 MT, and possibly as much as 600,000 MT, of optional origin (possibly French) wheat for October shipment this week. Reports out of Russia and Ukraine continue to indicate higher yields than a year ago. The Ukraine early grain harvest is said to be 31% complete, with yields averaging 3.15 MT/ha versus 3.06 MT/ha a year ago. That includes 6 MMT of wheat, for which the harvest is said to be 26% complete. They've exported 248 TMT of wheat since Jul 1. Russia said that it's harvest was 10.8% complete on 5 million ha, producing a crop of 18.7 MMT so far, with yields at 3.73 MT/ha, up 5.7% on a year ago. That includes 14.8 MMT of wheat on 3.9 million ha (14.5% of the planned area), with average yields of 3.83 MT/ha, up 5.8% on a year ago. The Russian barley harvest is said to be 7.6% complete on 676k ha, producing a crop of 2.5 MMT so far with yields averaging 3.70 MT/ha, up 8.8% on 3.40 MT/ha a year ago. The head of the Regional Ag Ministry in the Saratov area of the country however said that grain production there could be down by around a third this year, to 2.5 MMT, due to drought. If rains don't arrive soon, this could also have a negative impact on plantings in the autumn for the 2016 harvest, she added. As ever with Russia though, you can never be 100% sure exactly how accurate these reports are. Are these statements simply an attempt to prise a bit of extra financial aid from Moscow? Sep 15 CBOT Wheat closed at $5.54, down 8 1/4 cents; Sep 15 KCBT Wheat closed at $5.46 1/2, down 6 3/4 cents; Sep 15 MGEX Wheat closed at $5.74 3/4, down 7 1/4 cents. This was around 22 cents, 26 cents and 33 cents lower respectively for the week.