• It has been a down day today in soybeans and products, corn and wheat in Chicago as well as EU grains. Volume has been uninspiring, presumably for the reasons we suggested in our last update. S American weather continues to look favourable and values for soybean meal in China decline. Technical pictures fail to inspire and look bearish adding to the negative sentiment.

• US weekly export figures were released today as follows:

Wheat; 382,900 mt, which is within estimates of 300,000-500,000 mt.
Corn; 804,800 mt, which is above estimates of 600,000-750,000 mt.
Soybeans; 1,522,400 mt, which is above estimates of 750,000-950,000 mt.
Soybean meal; 83,000 mt, which is below estimates of 100,000-200,000 mt.
Soybean oil; 2,400 mt, which is within estimates of 0-30,000 mt.

• Brussels granted yet another massive week of wheat export certificates with 814,151 mt, which brings the season total to 13.188 million mt. This is 3.763 million mt (39.9%) ahead of last year.

• In the US a group of senators has proposed elimination of the ethanol mandate which has not added any support to corn prices. They suggested that mandated ethanol inclusions both escalate food and feed prices as well as harming the environment. Clearly the proposal will face a significant battle to progress very far but is a cautionary flag which should not be ignored totally.

• Without doubt we are in interesting and potentially changing times.