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INSIDE AGRICULTURE
Friday, December 12, 2014
CHINA’s SOYBEAN IMPORTS
TOP NEWS
Click on the chart for full-size image
 Solid U.S. retail sales point to firming economic recovery
 Cocoa market seen in surplus in 2014/15 for second year -JSG
 Turkey rejects three shipments of U.S. corn-based feed -USGC
 Brazil's sugar output slows as rains soak end of cane harvest Unica
 China November cotton imports down 46.8 pct y/y at 92,100 tonnes - industry website
 Coffee producers sell 65 pct of Brazil's 2014-15 harvest
 Rains help argentine farm areas, 67 pct of soy planted-Exchange
 Egypt's GASC buys 180,000 tonnes Russian, French wheat
TODAY’S MARKETS
Futures
(as of 0730 GMT)
Active
CBOT Wheat
CBOT Corn
CBOT Soybean
JAN5
CBOT Soybean Oil
JAN5
CBOT Soy Meal
JAN5
ICE Cotton
MAR5
Price
Change
MAR5
596
-1 4/8
-1.28%
4,637
MAR5
398 6/8
2/8
-5.57%
14,743
1041
-1 2/8
-20.59%
4,042
$31.97
-$0.05
-17.52%
30,036
$370.50
-$1.00
-15.12%
801
$61.20
$0.72
-28.54%
1,469
Asia Contracts
YTD
Volume
M3
Settle
Change
Percent
BMD Palm Oil
JAN5
R2,180
-R11
-0.5%
Dalian Soybean Oil
JAN5
￥5,594
￥12
0.2%
ECONOMIC WATCH
GMT
Indicators
Unit Reuters
Prior
08:00 ES HICP mm
pct
-0.3
0.1
08:00 ES HICP yy
pct
-0.5
-0.5
09:00 IT
HICP final mm*
pct
-0.3
-0.3
09:00 IT
HICP final yy*
pct
0.2
0.2
09:30 GB Construction o/p vol mm
pct
0.7
1.8
09:30 GB Construction o/p vol yy
pct
1.3
3.5
13:30 US PPI final demand mm
pct
-0.1
0.2
13:30 US PPI final demand yy
pct
1.4
1.5
13:30 US Core PPI final demand yy
pct
1.8
1.8
13:30 US Core PPI final demand mm
pct
0.1
0.4
13:55 US U Mich sentiment prelim
ip
89.5
88.8
CLICK HERE FOR TENDERS
GRAINS: U.S. wheat futures edged lower, falling back after jumping more than 2.5 percent in the previous session, and the grain
was on course to finish the week little changed as strong fund buying offset pressure from easing fears over supply.
"The U.S. is not really the most likely origin to win these tenders
anyway," said Tobin Gorey, director for agricultural strategy at
Commonwealth Bank of Australia wrote in a note to clients.
SOFTS: Cocoa futures on ICE sank around 3 percent on Thursday,
marking their biggest one-day tumble in two months as the spot
London spread weakened sharply ahead of first notice day and
triggered automatic sell orders.
"London December/March weakened and it looks like trailing sellstops on the way down," one veteran U.S. cocoa trader said, noting
sell stops were triggered in both the London and U.S. cocoa markets.
EDIBLE OIL: Malaysian palm oil futures edged higher, lifted by a
weak local currency and concern that monsoon rains could curb
output in December, although gains were limited by a further drop
in crude oil prices.
"Palm is up on the back of a weak ringgit. And looking ahead, we
expect the monsoon season to disrupt production this month," a
trader at a foreign commodities brokerage said.
STOCKS: European stock markets were expected to open lower
with renewed declines in the price of oil seen hitting energy stocks
while political concerns over Greece also peg back equities. Asian
markets traded mixed. Wall Street closed positive on Thursday.
CLICK HERE FOR TECHNICAL CHARTS
INSIDE AGRICULTURE
December 12, 2014
TOP NEWS
Cocoa market seen in surplus in 2014/15 for second year JSG
Solid U.S. retail sales point to firming economic recovery
Jack Reed can see the recovery taking hold at his family's 109year-old clothing store in Tupelo, Mississippi, with sales buoyed
in part by the paychecks tied to a Toyota plant up the road and
rising confidence that the jobs are here to stay.
As retailers nationwide reported a brisk jump in November sales
and optimism about the holiday season, Reed said on Thursday
that the gears of the U.S. economy seemed to have finally
meshed.
In a rural area that counts Elvis Presley among its native sons,
the drop in gasoline prices also was leaving more money in people's pockets.
November's retail advance showed the holiday shopping season
was off to a strong start, and dispelled the gloom from a drop in
Black Friday weekend commerce. Black Friday, the day after
Thanksgiving, has traditionally been seen as the kickoff for holiday sales, but analysts say consumers have shifted spending
through the month and are doing more shopping online.
Coupled with strong job reports and signals of upcoming wage
growth, the sales data could boost confidence in the durability of
the recovery as the Federal Reserve debates when and how
fast to raise U.S. interest rates.
Retail sales excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials
and food services, increased 0.6 percent last month after rising
0.5 percent in October, the Commerce Department reported.
The global cocoa market will be in surplus for a second year as
demand falls and output remains close to records, an influential
softs broker said on Thursday, the latest company to downplay
concerns about shortages that fueled a year-long bull run.
At its annual symposium on Thursday, Connecticut-based brokerage JSG Commodities' assistant trader Eric Bergman projected a slight decline in production in the 2014/15 season,
which ends in September 2015, from a bumper crop in 2013/14
when top-producer Ivory Coast harvested a record 1.74 million
tonnes.
JSG, the biggest raw sugar physical and futures broker in the
United States, started dealing in cocoa several years ago and
announced plans a year ago to expand into other soft commodity markets.
The forecast will stir the debate over expectations for supply in
the current season as some investors worry a possible El Nino
weather phenomenon could hurt crops in West Africa, the market's No. 1 growing region.
Brazil's sugar output slows as rains soak end of cane harvest -Unica
Brazil's sugar output slowed further in late November with
nearly half of the region's cane mills ending harvest earlier than
normal, the sugar and ethanol association Unica said on Thursday. Mills in the region produced 762,200 tonnes of sugar in the
second half of November, compared with 1.2 million tonnes in
the first half. Last year, mills produced 1.4 million tonnes of
sugar in late November.
Despite the clear slowing of sugar production in the world's largest exporter of the sweetener, futures markets turned lower
after Unica's sugar output numbers surpassed some traders'
expectations. New York sugar futures eased more than 1 percent but then reclaimed some ground and were down 0.7 percent at 15.35 c/lb at 12:30 Brasilia time.
A severe drought over the first 10 months of 2014 shrank the
size of the cane crop and accelerated harvesting.
With the return of spring rains in recent weeks, many mills had
to suspend their planned end of harvest until early December,
Unica said in its latest bimonthly crushing report.
Turkey rejects three shipments of U.S. corn-based feed USGC
Turkey has rejected three shipments of U.S. distiller's dried
grains, a feed ingredient, as it steps up enforcement of rules on
imports of genetically modified corn, the U.S. Grains Council
said on its website on Thursday.
The council, whose members include major grains traders and
producer groups, said at least one other vessel carrying the feed
ingredient from the United States had been diverted to another
buyer from Turkey while on the water.
China, the world's top buyer of feed ingredients, stopped importing distiller's dried grains (DDG) from the United States in July
after authorities there said an unapproved genetically modified
corn strain had shown up in some shipments.
DDGs are a byproduct of refining corn to make ethanol.
Prices for DDGs have jumped sharply in the last month, partly
on hopes that China would return to the market. U.S. export
trade groups including the USGC have been working for months
with China to resolve the issue.
Coffee producers sell 65 pct of Brazil's 2014-15 harvest
By the end of November, coffee farmers in Brazil sold 65 percent of the 2014-15 crop that completed harvest a few months
ago, or 31.97 million 60-kg bags of the 48.9-million-bag total,
local crop analysts Safras e Mercado said in a report on Thursday.
On average over the past five years, farmers had sold 63 percent of their respective crops by this time of year, the analysts'
coffee market report said. Last year at this time, only 55 percent
of the harvest had been sold, Safras consultant Gil Barabach
said.
The coffee market's sales volumes through the end of November were up 4 percentage points from sales at the end of October. Barabach said that while demand for sales had lost steam
in recent weeks, the weakening of the Brazilian currency
against the dollar was helping physical sales of the crop.
"The nature of sales is much more measured, with the market
anticipation of the year-end holidays," he said.
China November cotton imports down 46.8 pct y/y at 92,100
tonnes - industry website
China imported 92,100 tonnes of cotton in November, down
46.8 percent on the same month last year, said trade website
Cncotton.com, citing customs statistics.
Chinese cotton imports for the first 11 months of the year
dropped by 38.6 percent to 2.18 million tonnes, the data
showed.
Imports by the world's top cotton consumer fell in 2014 after the
government issued fewer import quotas.
China's October imports of 81,900 tonnes marked the lowest
level since January 2009.
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INSIDE AGRICULTURE
December 12, 2014
TOP NEWS (Continued)
Rains help argentine farm areas, 67 pct of soy plantedExchange
Egypt's GASC buys 180,000 tonnes Russian, French wheat
Egypt's state grain buyer, the General Authority for Supply
Commodities (GASC), said on Thursday it had bought 180,000
tonnes of Russian and French wheat in a tender for shipment
on Jan. 11 to 20.
Egypt, the world's biggest importer of wheat, bought 60,000
tonnes of Russian wheat from Vitol, 60,000 tonnes of Russian
wheat from Bunge and 60,000 tonnes of French wheat from
Soufflet, Mamdouh Abdel Fattah, GASC vice chairman, said.
The average price was $262.92 per tonne, on a cost and freight
basis, he said.
Egypt has bought 2.605 million tonnes of wheat on the international market since July 1, the start of the fiscal year.
It purchased 5.46 million tonnes of wheat from overseas in the
2013-2014 fiscal year in addition to 3.7 million tonnes of local
wheat.
Argentine growers advanced the 2014/15 soy planting by a brisk
12.3 percentage points over the last seven days as rains on the
Pampas grains belt helped improved conditions, the Buenos
Aires Grains Exchange said on Thursday.
So far 67 percent of the 20.6 million hectares expected to be
sown with soy this season has been planted, the exchange said
in a report. Argentina is the world's top exporter of soymeal livestock feed and the No. 3 supplier of raw soybeans.
"Rain over the last week replenished an important number of
areas in Cordoba, Santa Fe and Entre Rios provinces where
2014/15 wheat has already been harvested and late-planted soy
is expected to be sown," the report said.
The Rosario grains exchange said on Wednesday it expected a
2014/15 Argentine soy crop of 55 million tonnes. Neither the
government nor the Buenos Aires exchange has yet to issue a
soy harvest estimate.
The Buenos Aires exchange also said 51.8 percent of Argentina's expected 2014/15 commercial-use corn crop has planted
and 53.5 of this season's wheat has been harvested.
TENDER
WHEAT TENDER: A buyer in Greece has purchased 5,000
tonnes of wheat from Ukraine for January 2015 shipment, European traders said on Thursday.
RICE TENDER: Jordan's state grain buyer has purchased
50,000 tonnes of optional-origin hard wheat in an international
tender for 100,000 tonnes which closed on Wednesday, traders
said.
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INSIDE AGRICULTURE
December 12, 2014
1-Month TECHNICAL CHARTS with 14 Days Moving Average
CBOT Corn
CBOT Wheat
ICE Cocoa
ICE Coffee
CBOT Soybeans
CBOT Soymeal
(Inside Agriculture is compiled by Renuka Vijay Kumar in Bangalore)
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