Overnight markets were firmer in the USA with wheat, corn and soybeans all seeing small gains. The fundamentals were basically unchanged with good export orders pushing corn, potential sales pushing soybeans and dry weather driving wheat values higher.
Grains may have seen an influx of funds from despondent Wall St punters after little progress was reported on the US corona virus stimulus package.
Corn was spurred on by news of a 345kt sale to an “unknown” destination, most of the unknown reports this year have later turned out to be China. Corn harvest in the states has progressed well with the USDA showing 60% now in the bin. The weekly crop condition rating remained stable at 61% G/E. Winter wheat sowing in the US is also progressing nicely with 77% now in the ground, that’s 5% more than the 5 year Avg for this time of year.
World Ag Weather .com continues to show unseasonal dry weather persisted across the US over the last 14 days. The forecast does call for some useful falls across the eastern corn belt and the Dakota’s over the next fortnight but much of the HRWW country is expected to remain relatively dry.
The northern and central Russian winter wheat regions are expected to see a couple of showers over the next 14 days but the region east of the Black Sea, one of the most productive regions, is expected to remain dry and temperatures will not be that cold. Some parts of Europe are a little dry but generally the EU block is in pretty good shape. Heavy rain is predicted for the dry parts of Argentina, salt for the wounds.