Cash bids for both spring wheat and durum in SW Saskatchewan were a little firmer overnight. Durum would best be described as sideways though with a Dec 20 lift bid at about C$260.63. Basis to FOB varies a little from location to location at the farm and port end but this cash bid would basically equate to a Newcastle port equivalent number somewhere around $380 port at today’s currency. Shipping rates have increased a little for many non US locations in the last week while rates for those ships leaving US ports have generally fallen.

In the US Chicago corn futures were up a quarter of a cent per bushel for Dec, a quarter of a cent, even in Aussie pesos this is a minuscule amount. Let’s look at the technical side of corn. Well it’s over sold to buggery, what about the fundamental side you say.  Well there was a small US sale made to China of 1.94 million tonnes yesterday, that’s only a daily sales record to China, nothing to hoo-ha about……… seriously. We have Chinese state auctions for corn getting cleaned up, China making record purchases and the futures markets in the USA are looking at a weather forecast and wondering if they should move the market a quarter of a cent per bushel because they might grow a handful more. I tend to get the feeling this corn market isn’t exactly reflecting things perfectly at present.
Let’s look at Dalian corn futures for yesterday. The November contract closed at 2256Y/t, about US$321.88 / tonne. Currently we see US, Brazilian, Argentine corn all around US$170 FOB, US product costs around US$42 to take from the Gulf to China, so call it roughly US$212 delivered FOB China. Am I missing something. Sanctions, tariffs, trade agreements, unfair trading………….. if it looks like duck…..