• Chicago has seen something of a pre-holiday session in advance of the US Memorial Day holiday on Monday, as well as the UK’s spring bank holiday weekend. Grains have found some support on breaks and soybeans have remained weak on technicals as well as a falling S American basis. Fund covering of shorts in wheat has continued and Kansas wheat has posted a new rally high today but there is still little to get excited about.

• The USDA has today released its weekly export figures as detailed below:

Wheat: 202,600 mt, which is above estimates of minus 200,000-plus 50,000 mt.
Corn: 893,300 mt, which is above estimates of 400,000-600,000 mt.
Soybeans: 243,000 mt, which is within estimates of 100,000-250,000 mt.
Soybean Meal: 101,000 mt, which is within estimates of 50,000-125,000 mt.
Soybean Oil: 9,900 mt which is within estimates of zero-15,000 mt.

• Clearly corn sales were better than anticipated but soy and wheat sales were lacklustre at best. It is interesting to note that the new crop volumes were less than inspiring.

• Brussels has issued weekly wheat exports amounting to 655,618 mt, which brings the season total to 30,802,686 mt. The season to date total is now 3.369 million mt (12.28%) ahead of last year.

• Algeria tendered for wheat and whilst it is too early to be specific, it appears that offers were some $10 below Wednesday’s replacement levels – once again suggesting an eagerness to secure sales! The rally in Kansas wheat, which triggered Chicago and, in turn, Matif has now left sellers to Algeria some $15 below Thursday’s replacement level – lucky old Algeria we say! The rally feels to be too early to be fully justified, crops are generally looking good and if a crop problem is to develop, we have to wait until June, as was the case in 2010 and 2012. With the size of the fund wheat short in recent weeks it seems the market is just plain nervous.

• S American crop estimates have been forthcoming today with AgroConsult estimating Brazil’s 2014/15 soybean crop at 96.1 million mt, a 300,000 mt increase from their last figure. Corn output was also seen higher at 30.7 million mt, up from 29 million mt Previously forecast for the initial crop and the safrinha crop a full million mt higher at 51.4 million mt. The Argentine government has increased its 2014/15 soybean output figure by 1 million mt to 60 million mt and corn was also increased by 1 million mt to 31 million mt.