We have a USDA World Ag Supply & Demand report out tonight so the US markets were mainly concerned with positioning and speculation associated with that. At Chicago soybeans were a tad firmer, corn was flat to lower while wheat was lower with HRW slipping further than SRW. Meanwhile at Minneapolis spring wheat futures found a little support and closed a smidge higher.

The higher close in soybeans lent some strength to the ICE canola product. Weekly US export inspections came out around the middle of the trade guess prior to the report. With just under 500kt loaded it was 30% up on the previous week and with China on the books for 76kt of it the trade appeared happy. Talk of some possible frost damage in the early beans in the US also added some fundamental support but with only 7% of the US beans actually out of the ground the risk is so low it’s dismissible.
US wheat futures found little support from their export numbers. Winter wheat condition did drop 2% in the G/E range in the weekly crop progress report. This report came out after the close so had little impact on the market and will probably get overlooked when the WASDE comes out tonight. Spring wheat sowing was expected to be around 49% but has come in at 42% sown, delayed by cold, wet conditions.

Algeria are in for some more wheat, launching a tender for 50kt. The volume they buy is often well over the tender volume, often by as much as ten times the volume. Traders will watch this closely to benchmark further EU offer values.