Soybeans were sharply lower on fund and commercial selling. There was more rainfall over the weekend in key growing areas of South America and the trade is expecting a record crop for Argentina and Brazil. In any event, there was no fresh news to start out the week. Weekly export inspections were bullish but that became old news fairly quickly. Soybean meal and oil were lower on spillover from beans and the fundamental implications of a record South American crop. Dow Jones Newswires reports cash soybean basis levels were higher Monday due to the tight supply and strong end user demand.

Corn was mixed with contracts for the current marketing year down on spillover from soybeans and new crop up on commercial demand. There was no fresh news for corn either, so contracts pretty much took the path of least resistance. The major New York markets and USDA’s Washington DC office were closed due to the impact of Hurricane Sandy along the Eastern Seaboard. Ethanol futures were higher. According to Dow Jones Newswires, China and Ukraine have signed a deal stipulating Beijing will lend Kiev $3 billion in exchange for around 3 million tons of feed corn, adding the agreement could eventually extend to soybeans and canola.

The wheat complex was lower on technical selling and spillover from beans. Still, the complex is keeping an eye on continued crop weather problems around the world, especially mounting Australian production losses. South Korea bought 26,000 tons of U.S. wheat, along with 38,800 tons from Australia. In sell-buy-sell activity, Japan bought 29,300 tons of food wheat and 9,500 tons of food barley. European wheat was weak on the lack of fresh fundamental news.