Soybeans were off sharply while wheat made a rare move into positive territory. Corn was mostly steady from Wednesday’s close. In outside markets, equity futures added to yesterday’s sharp gains while crude oil drifted higher.
USDA announced the sale of 332,000 MT of corn to South Korea and 136,000 MT of soybeans to unknown destinations.
Overnight, India’s parliament was scrapping the wheat import duty. Private importers have already purchased about 500,000 MT of wheat, largely from Australia, in the past month after the world's second-biggest producer of the grain cut the duty to 10 percent from 25 percent in September. In other wheat news, Saudi Arabia was tendering for 715,000 MT of hard wheat and Ethiopia was in the market for 70,000 MT.
Yesterday, rains were widespread over Mato Grossos in Brazil and are expected to expand across all but far south corn/soy areas next 5 days. The 6-10 day forecast shows more restrictive rains contract in the Northern half of Brazil but return to the south in 11-15 day. Thunderstorms popped up overnight benefiting N. Cordoba/N. Santa Fe in Argentina. Showers very limited next 10 days with better rains possible 11-15 day in NE 1/2 Arg.; dryness lingers Buenos Aires. Heat is likely to build across Arg. corn/soy late 6-10 day/early 11-15 day (90’s) adding to stress in drier C. 1/3 of belt.
Weekly Export Sales-
Actual Expected
Corn 1,495 700-1,000
Soybeans 1,461 1,000-1,300
Wheat 503 300-500
Oil prices steadied around $50 a barrel on Thursday, close to the week's lows, on doubts proposed OPEC production cuts would be sufficient to balance the market, although a weaker dollar supported sentiment. EIA U.S. crude oil inventories dropped 2.4 million barrels in the week to Dec. 2, compared with analyst expectations for a draw of 1 million barrels.
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