In the wheat pits Chicago settled unchanged closing at 500.25usc/bu, Kansas was 3 usc/bu higher to settle at 413.25usc/bu, while Minni softened -1.75 usc/bu to go out at 541.75usc/bu. Corn fell -1.5 usc/bu to go out at 394.25usc/bu while Beans were up 3.25 usc/bu to settle at 923.75usc/bu WCE Canola softened -1.5 CAD/mt closing at 463.3CAD/mt with Matif Canola finishing lower by -1.5 Eur/mt. In outside markets the Dow Jones gained 181.97 points, Crude was down -0.01 bbl the Aussie was -0.0005 lower to settle at 0.67222, the CAD rallied 0.0006 while the EUR gained 0.0014

With the looming WASDE report coming out tonight Aussie time, markets were mixed.

The big news is the snow forecast for the US Great Plains which will impact corn and soybeans yields and then quality down the track. This should be price supportive to the wheat market.

The main game will be yields in corn and beans – the average trade guess is 167.5bu/ac for corn vs 168.2bu/ac contained in the Sept report while beans average guess is 47.3bu/ac vs Sept at 47.9bu/ac. The highest trade estimate for corn was 168.7bu/ac which is only slightly above the Sept number so the market is definitely looking for a lower print and would be pretty negative should the number fall closer to unchanged, or higher.

The average trade carry-out estimates for tonight’s report (in billion bushels) are; wheat 1.015bbu (Sept report 1.014) corn 1.784 (Sept report 2.190) and beans .521 bbu (Sept .640) Trade guesses on world carry-out (in million tonnes) are; wheat 285.17Mt (Sept report 286.51) corn 298.27Mt (Sept report 306.27) and beans 96.46Mt (Sept report 99.19).

Trade talks continue and overnight reports are suggesting China’s negotiators are open to a partial trade deal. Talk will resume again on Thursday in Washington. If the two sides can agree to not raise tariffs, this would be a positive result and see markets react favourably.

Aussie markets relatively unchanged. Some delivered markets softened a tad.

It feels like a waiting game now until the bulk of harvest kicks into gear and what yields start coming from the monitors around different regions. We’d expect some surprises and some  disappointment, as always.

With crop estimates not getting any bigger, we look back at this time last year when wheat values were $80-100/t higher than today.

Forecast remains positive on the BOM 8-day for southern WA, Vic and for parts of Qld still hanging along the coast at this stage.