Corn and soybean prices in Chicago went down on Tuesday while wheat went up. Wheat and rapeseed went down in Paris while corn increased, but changes were not big.

The EUR/USD index went up to 1.0652. Crude oil went down to 52.73 USD/barrel.

Petroleum prices mark a slight decline during Tuesday’s weak trade following the Easter celebrations. Oil price had been constantly increased for almost a month, a Phillip Futures analyst stated in Singapore. Meanwhile, Schist production in the USA is expected to reach its biggest monthly increase in May. Prices remained higher than $50/barrel, so producers increased the drilling tempo..

Grains prices were slightly boosted in Chicago yesterday by the rain in the USA, which will delay the sowing campaign of the spring crops. Prices went down at the end of the session because of the fact that the delay had been calculated when forming the prices. Sowing is running late especially versus last year’s sowing, but also versus the average level for the past five years. Tempo in the next few days is expected to be relaxed, which will further increase the delay. Apparently there will be no early crops during this season and drought hazard during the summer will be even bigger. High temperatures in the USA are a positive sign and they will boost fast grain growing especially when there is enough humidity. Analysts state that if sowing tempo remains slow in the first week of May, the market will have to react by increasing the prices. The current high demand for buying American corn makes the market react to each problem during the campaign. Corn sowing delay may create opportunities of a bigger area shift from corn to soybeans. In case corn sowing campaign is completed on time, it will enable the successful soybean sowing in the USA. We should keep in mind last year’s fast corn sowing campaign when the weather conditions were very good. So, a re-run of last year’s result is quite unlikely. 6% of the planned corn areas in the USA have been sowed so far versus 12% last year and an average of 9% over the past five years. As of 16.04.2017, 13% of the planned spring wheat areas in the USA have been sowed versus 25% last year and an average of 21% for the past five years.

Soybean price in Chicago was under pressure yesterday following the news of a big soybean production in China in 2017, which spurred sales in China as well.

A relatively weak American currency enables exporters to sell their goods more easily. This goes for wheat too, whose export sales has ranked high for the past few months. Following the rain in the past few weeks, wheat condition in the USA is slowly recovering and reaching last year’s level.

Weathermen predict that this season’s monsoon rainfall in India will reach an average level, which gives hope for a relatively good wheat yield. Monssons are those which determine how good the yield is in a season. A level of over 92 – 93 mln tons will be considered good and a level of over 95 mln tons will be very good. We should not forget that wheat consumption in the country is growing fast, which will demand excellent yields especially with the low stocks amounts. We cannot expect that the country will turn into a net explorer in the years to come.

We should keep in mind that the new state administration in the USA is now putting FED under pressure so that interest rates tempo is slowed down, which will make the national currency relatively weak. This will make Euro zone producers a bit uneasy during the new season.

The information on weekly export from Ukraine was delayed, but here it is now: Between April 4 and April 14, 1.58 mln tons of grains were exported from Ukrainian sea ports versus 860,100 tons a week earlier. The export volume consisted of 268,100 tons of wheat, 1.252 mln tons of corn and 59,600 tons of barley. Malta with 811,500 tons, Egypt with 212,100 tons and Hong Kong with 138,800 tons were the biggest buyers. It was a very strong week for Ukrainian corn. Wheat is doing very well, too. American corn export sales are currently very good too. The world cannot get enough of corn, which makes the situation a bit tense despite the huge production. South America is the only problem region now with the constant rain, but it will end one day, won’t it?

According to a Reuters research, the 2017 – 2018 corn yield in China may appear minimal for the past five years - 207.5 mln tons versus 219.6 mln tons over the current season. Corn areas will be 35.2 mln hectares or 4.1% lower than the official forecast. The former corn areas will be sowed with soybeans. Soybean yield will grow by 2.9% to 13.5 mln tons.

After the forecast of a big growth in grain production in Morocco, Algeria is ready to follow suit. Between December 2016 and February 2017 there was rain almost all over the country. With standard weather conditions, wheat yield will reach 2.7 mln tons (2.0 mln tons last year) and barley yield will be 1.3 mln tons (1.0). Domestic wheat consumption will remain steady over the season – 10.25 mln tons with barley consumption of 1.9 mln tons (2.05). Over the new season, wheat import will be 8.0 mln tons (8.2) while barley import will be 0.6 mln tons (0.9).

Corn price – Corn futures in Chicago went down by 4 – 5 cents/bushel yesterday. Ethanol production in Brazil is expected to go down to 6.538 billion gallons in 2017 – 2018 from the previous volume of 6.921 billion gallons in 2016 – 2017. 2017 corn areas in China will decrease by 4.19% to 35.2 mln hectares.

Soybean price – Soybeans in Chicago went down by 4 – 7.5 cents/bushel yesterday. Rapeseed areas in Canada are expected to grow by 4.57% versus those in 2016 up to 8.62 mln hectares. With the decreased corn areas in China, soybean areas are expected to grow, which will increase soybean yield by 400,000 tons to 13.5 mln tons.

Wheat price – Wheat futures in Chicago went up by 3 – 5 cents/bushel yesterday. There have been first signs of wheat crops diseases in the USA.