The US dollar is stronger again this morning while the Aussie dollar is weaker against most of our trading partners bar the euro and pound. The weaker AUD/USD conversion will go a long way to countering any downside in US futures overnight and a weaker AUD/Rp should also, in theory, help stabilise chickpea values as the NCDEX chickpea contract was close to unchanged by the close.

Good harvest weather across the US corn belt saw increased farmer deliveries thus weaker cash and futures in the USA. The weather for the next 5 days looks likely to be favourable for all but the far north and eastern portion of the US. This should result in the harvest pace catching up to the 5 year average in Monday nights crop progress report. Cooler weather in the US may slow progress in soybeans. Winter wheat planting is almost complete in the USA and the emerging crop is in almost ideal conditions in most locations.

Parts of northern and western Europe should see good falls this week as these rains move east they will push across northern Ukraine and across much of the Russian wheat regions to the south delaying field work.

The IGC were out with their stab at the world grain S&D last night. Wheat was relatively unchanged with just 1mt being removed from global consumption and being placed on ending stocks, which they peg at 249mt, that’s 19mt less than the current USDA estimate.