Monday trading sessions are becoming a strange one – there is some much importance on the planting pace results but, given they are released post the market its all about judging the “guess”. This week marks many states passing the prevent plant payout date which, in the context of estimating the final impact of the unseasonal weather, is extremely important. However, it was wheat that did all the heavy lifting overnight. Speculation over the crop condition, both the pending USDA release and the fact it was physically raining through the majority of the southern hard red winter belt coupled with the CFTC report which still showed the funds holding a short position was enough to excite the buyers. Wires also pointing to some dryness in Russia, which is a concern without being a game changer. Post the bell the crop condition report threw the market a curve ball. Wheat good to excellent ratings went up – amazing in the context of rainfall vs normal and the relative maturity of the crop. Add to this the spring wheat conditions which are near perfect and the sentiment could easy shift negative. As we have mentioned before though – this is almost not about wheat – its about corn and, once again the planting pace was a shocker. Only 67% of the US corn crop is in the ground – vs the trade guess of 71% – this means that just under 31m acres are not planted. Beans are also well behind and will trade higher today. Wheat will struggle today but may still get pulled up by corn – the simple fact is now we have a corn balance sheet that has more questions than answers and a bean market which has largely been ignored due to the estimated growth in stocks – that too is now in question.

Domestically we have some great rains on the map for WA – and they have made their way to the front end of the forecast. The east coast is rinse repeat – rains in the south and far north with a dribble in the middle. The Australian new crop is at a cross road – does it follow the US markets higher or does the reality that we are miles from pricing export business start to impact domestic values. Rain in the West will add some weight to the latter argument but we have a long way to go and current basis levels don’t exactly scream drought.