US futures markets turned lower overnight. Funds returned to the market as net sellers after panicking early last week to cover shorts after the weekend snow storm in Kansas. No such luck last weekend though and the crop progress report shows the flooding associated with the storm as it moved east across Kansas and east into the soybean and corn belt had little impact on sowing pace of summer crops from a big picture perspective.
There are localised issues across the entire US Midwest but at the moment these issues are being viewed as minor. It’s looking a little like termites, when do you say you have a termite problem, I guess it depends how short termite spray you are. At the moment the world has plenty of “termite spray” on hand.
US spring wheat looks likely to have a fair crack at sowing in the next week or so, hence spring wheat futures fell away. The crop progress report puts spring wheat sowing at 54% against the 5 year Avg of 60%, so it’s no threat really. The crop condition rating in Kansas was noted at 43% good to excellent compared to 49% last week, that’s a sizable drop and may have a bearing on direction of the overnight market. A week ago the percentage of the Kansas crop rated very poor to poor was at 16%, in last night’s report it was 27%, I think that is also worth noting. The WASDE report is due out Wednesday US time.