A higher start is likely this am, roughly 5 in wheat, 2 corn and 10 beans, following overnight gains. The $ index is lower while crude oil and the equity markets are a bit higher, all positive signs for the grains. Not much fresh market-moving news so far this am.

China is expected to offer 500,000 tonnes of beans from their reserve stockpile Thursday but their offering price, $549 a tonne, is too high compared with imported beans so there will probably be few takers. Still, just the fact they are trying to sell beans and could lower their offering price could hang over our bean market this week. China will also offer corn from their reserves tomorrow but since they don't import any corn this is unlikely to have any impact on our corn market. Taiwan tenders Wednesday for up to 120,000 tonnes of US/Brazilian beans. The USDA announced this am the sale of 120 US corn to Egypt, half old crop and half new crop. They also said Mexico bought 134,000 tonnes of US corn, 27,000 tones old crop and 107,000 tonnes new crop. The new crop corn year starts Sep 1.

Continued very favorable conditions are forecast in the main Chinese grain growing areas again this week. Hot and dry weather is forecast to stress corn and spring wheat in parts of Russia and the Ukraine the next several days or longer.

The US Delta will continue to benefit from cool temps with up to 1" of scattered rain the first half of the week. The Midwest was mostly cool and dry over the weekend. Rain is forecast in the west today/tomorrow and in the east Tue-Wed, up to 1". More cool temps are predicted this week. More rain is predicted Fri-Sat. ---Vic Lespinasse