- Today can be best described as “uneventful” with prices trading either side of unchanged in the wake of the USDA’s latest update, which gave little, if anything, to feed the bulls and maybe affirmed the bears’ longer term position.
- In Brazil the Real has fallen to its lowest level since 2004 at a shade under 2.87:1 vs. the US$. This represents a 24% drop since Brazilian farmers started their planting efforts, which probably equates to an exact offset of the CBOT or world soybean price decline across the same time frame. (12 months ago CBOT Mar soybean futures were trading $13.35, today $9.73, around 27% lower). Clearly the outcome is to see Brazilian farmers sell beans off the combine when realising good yields and prices that equate to last year’s levels.
- There are suggestions that Egypt is attempting to negotiate a deal with Russia to assure future wheat supplies free of export tax. They maybe have a couple of tenders to go before domestic supplies become available and if their negotiations are successful this could trigger interest from other world buyers. It is our belief that, unless we see an adverse weather event, it is likely we will see Moscow dropping or even removing their export tax on new crop supplies.
- The Rosario Grain Exchange today reported its 2014/15 estimate of Argentine soybean output at 58 million mt, which is 3.5 million mt above their last figure. They put corn at 23.5 million mt which is also higher by 1.1 million mt.