Chicago Grains Market - Midday Update

18/01/17 -- Around midday London time Chicago grains trade with the soycomplex mostly lower, consolidating from yesterday's gains, with beans down 4-6 cents, meal $3-4 weaker and wheat and corn around unchanged.

News that Morocco bought almost 360 TMT of US soft wheat under a preferential tariff quota agreement was welcomed by the US wheat market yesterday. Weekly export inspections, whilst not exactly brilliant at 344,436 MT, were still more than 31% on the previous week. Weekly export inspections for beans were a respectable 1.4 MMT, which those for corn were 888 TMT.

Ahead of Friday's Trump inauguration, China recently raising its import tariffs on DDGs means that there has been talk of a similar import tariff move on ethanol, which is also mostly sourced from the US. China are of course desperately seeking ways to encourage the off take of their own domestic corn stockpile is any which way, shape or form.

There's talk of private estimates for Argentine soybean production coming in at only 51-53 MMT versus the current 57 MMT from the USDA, mostly due to unsown acreage due to flooding.