It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. It’s all about positioning ahead of the break now. The trade continue to square up ahead of next week. Unimpressed with regular Chinese purchases of soybean, futures at Chicago pushed lower. Fundamentally one might expect such news and then the subsequent...

More talk of China buying US soybeans overnight. The official number is 300kt but some say as much as 840kt were booked. With news of this magnitude one might expect to see the market rally significantly but alas Chicago futures smashed out a massive gain of just 2.75c/bu (AUD$1.40)...

There are two numbers the USDA produce on a weekly basis that have a big impact on futures values. These are the export inspections number, the amount of grain actually being loaded and the export sales volume. Sales can get cancelled so a good sales week at some stage...

China stepped in to buy another large slice of US soybeans yesterday with the USDA receiving sales data for another 300kt. This wasn’t enough for the punters though and soybeans futures slipped away dragging canola and rapeseed futures with it. The weaker AUD will go a long way to...

US wheat futures continued to forge ahead on the prospect of better export orders in the new year. Are they simply punting, yes indeed it would appear so, this is a futures market after all. US weekly export sales were good though. At 754kt it’s up there and better...

Futures in the US wheat pit were higher by the close with the most strength being in the current crop contracts. A distinct slow-down in Russian exports week on week and confirmation Egypt has paid US$5.00 per tonne more for 180kt of milling wheat out of the Black Sea...

The WASDE data was considered bearish wheat values. It doesn’t appear to be any worse than the punters had expected but as the US wheat futures market was overbought one could easily see the market getting sold lower for another day or two if need be. US projected wheat...

It’s WASDE week, expect nothing overwhelming until this report is out in the open on Wednesday. A few things are weighing heavy on US futures values. The two main ones are their dealings with China and the second probably more real world issue is their slow pace of exports...

Good weekly US export sales data for wheat surprised the market. At 712kt this was well above what most punters were expecting, 300kt – 600kt. Futures moved 3% while cash bids on the ground were not as keen to march higher. If the US is to take advantage of...

Grains were lower on technical trade and outside markets. There is also some doubt the Chinese will honour their comments at the G20 after Huawei’s CFO was arrested in Canada for breach of sanctions against Iran. Any further details on the arrest have been censored. The fact the arrest...