Weekly grain report

10/3/12: Prices started the day lower once again on Wednesday. However, a sharp rally midsession brought the futures markets back to unchanged by the end of the day. Egypt bought Argentine and French wheat overnight, and there were no offers out of Russia or any of the Black Sea countries. U.S. prices were much closer this time around, however we still didn’t get any of the business. Stats Canada will be out in the morning with some updated production information for north of the border.

10/5/12: Once again Portland exporters went to basis-only bids on Friday afternoon, which prevents us from offering a cash bid for white wheat. Prices were lower on Friday morning in a break from the recent Friday pattern. However, that didn’t change the result, as traders are unwilling to offer cash markets without the futures trade to back them. Wheat export sales were a bit disappointing for the week at only 11.3 million bushels, 3.6 million of which was white wheat, though that is pretty decent. As futures prices have fallen during the week, Portland basis has improved indicating that there are sales on the books that need some country bushels to fill them.

10/9/12: The grain markets have been fairly quiet this week as traders await the release of the latest USDA supply-and-demand guesstimate on Thursday. If they are consistent with their quarterly stocks report at the end of September then corn and wheat supplies should shrink while soybeans get a moderate bump higher. Of course the USDA isn’t known for being terribly consistent, and the fears are that they’ll add some corn acreage in order to prevent next year’s ending stocks-to-use ratio from falling to a record low level. Japan is in for 2 million bushels of western white wheat on Wednesday night.