Overview of futures markets:

Stronger for grains and oilseeds.

• CBOT Wheat was up 5.5c to 449c,
• Kansas wheat up 9.25c to 460.5c,
• corn up 5c to 374.5c,
• soybeans up 8.5c to 1059c,
• Winnipeg canola up 0.699$C to 527.8$C,
• Matif canola up 3.25€ to 421.75€.
• The Dow Jones up 96.96 to 20269.37 ,
• Crude Oil up 0.85c to 53.85c,
• AUD up to 0.767c,
• CAD up to 1.308c, (AUDCAD 1.004)
• EUR down to 1.063c (AUDEUR 0.7217).

Soybeans and canola

Soybeans stronger with fund buying and Chinese import interest the catalysts. January soybean imports, according to Chinese Customs are 35% higher than last January. Farmer selling has picked up and is dampening rallies at present.

Canola slightly higher despite weakness in the oilseed complex and a higher Canadian dollar. The March contract is at its highest level in 3 months as farmer selling has slowed.

Corn

Corn found support driven by new fund buying after breaching key technical resistance levels last week. Farmer selling has increased, but is not in large enough volume to exhaust the bid. Commitment of traders (COT) fund position in corn is up 11,400, to 20,500 contracts.

Wheat

Wheat followed other grains higher, as the rally prompted short covering. Kansas lead the charge closing above its 200-day moving average for the first time since June, prompted by warm temperatures in the wheat belt. The technical picture is getting better in SRW with the March contract poised to take out some key resistance levels, which suggest a longer term trend reversal. In spite of promising technicals, this rally is making US wheat expensive into export markets, so demand could be a negative factor longer term. The SRW wheat COT short reduced 13,000 contracts to -93,800 contracts.

Australia

WA received excellent rainfall last week with approximately 70% of the cropping regions getting between 100-150mm of rainfall. The east coast experienced extremely hot conditions with bushfires in NSW brought on by the heatwave. This is expected to stick around until Tuesday before it drifts into northern Queensland. Summer crops have suffered with the sorghum crop reduced significantly.Local prices have rallied as the dry east coast forecast slows grower selling. Demand for feed wheat is increasing on the back of this, combined with export demand from SEA.

Source: Lachstock Consulting