Soybeans were higher on technical buying, short covering and the lower dollar. Near term demand looks good and Wednesday’s USDA supply and demand update should show tighter domestic stocks. However, the trade’s keeping close watch on South America’s expected record crop. Overall, business was pretty light and contracts as much as anything bought back some of last week’s losses ahead of the USDA numbers. Soybean meal and oil were higher on spillover from beans and oversold signals. Oil managed to outgain meal on product spread trade.
Corn was narrowly mixed in consolidation trade with traders getting ready for Wednesday’s USDA report. The trade expects the numbers to be mixed with ending stocks just about steady with last month on slack demand and a chance for USDA to lower the 2009 production estimate. There was limited support from expectations for planting delays due to flooding with warm temperatures and rainfall in store for many areas of the Midwest this week. Also, there are concerns about rain in South American delaying harvest. Ethanol futures were higher. According to Dow Jones Newswires, Japan has purchased roughly 200,000 tons of U.S. corn since the start of March due to high shipping costs out of South America.
The wheat complex was higher on technical buying, short covering and the lower dollar. Trade’s expected to stay fairly choppy ahead of Wednesday’s supply and demand update. Contracts were oversold after last week’s losses but fundamentals remain very bearish with a large supply and not much new demand for U.S. wheat. Minneapolis did pick up additional support from concerns over spring planting delays. European wheat was mixed with support from disease concerns on the continent and pressure from the negative fundamentals; March Paris was down .4% and May London was up .5%.
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