The grains immediately surged to new move highs on the opening last night, but it was all downhill from there, with the reversal leading to moderate losses. A lack of supportive fundamental news, coupled with lethargic outside markets and a much better precipitation outlook this morning for the driest U.S. crop areas, has the ball at least briefly in the bears’ court.

Taiwan Sugar Corp will tender on Thursday for 23,000 tonnes of U.S. corn and 12,000 tonnes of U.S. beans for April-May delivery; a UAE flour mill is tendering for 30k tonnes of milling wheat, 20k tonnes of barley, and 20k tonnes of corn today, with optional origin and for April 15-May 15 shipment. Iraq also bought 300k tonnes of Canadian wheat from a tender that closed early last week, after they had purchased 400k Canadian on Feb. 22.

Russia’s first deputy prime minister stated on the government website that they will not impose any grain export restrictions in 2011/12 (through June 30), with exports seen reaching up to 27 million tonnes this season.

Truckers are the latest group to strike in Argentina, suspending work indefinitely and demanding higher pay just as the country’s soybean harvest begins.

Private analysts, Safras & Mercado, on Friday estimate 2011/12 Brazilian corn production at 63.26 million tonnes, down nearly 4% from their initial forecast but still a record, ahead of 57.5 MMT LY and the current 62.0 MMT USDA.

Friday’s CFTC Reports showed spec funds again winding with a longer net corn and soy position on week ending last Tuesday (3/13) than daily trade estimates expected, with corn gaining 4.5k net contracts on the week and the entire soy complex up more than 10k each, though CBOT wheat lost 10.6k net and 5.3k net in the traditional report. The Disaggregated Report showed plenty of gains for the managed money traders across the soy complex as well, with net sales in the feed grains; producers and merchants dumped 12.8k net corn and 13-16.5k net in the soy complex on the week ending March 13.

Matt Zeller