A lower start is forecast this am, roughly 10 in wheat, 3-4 in corn and beans. The $ is higher, a negative background influence for all the grains.

Prices were lower Friday but that didn't stop open interest from rising, especially in corn, up around 15,000 with wheat and beans up several thousand each as well. You'd think recent losses would represent long liquidation but rising open interest suggests new positions in these markets instead. This could be a combination of new spec shorts as well as buying by end users, taking advantage of the big price drop to lock in supplies at relatively cheap levels.

The USDA just announced the sale of 116,000 tonnes of US corn to an unknown destination and 100,000 tonnes of US beans to China, both for the 2009-10 crop year, which started Sep 1.

Saudi Arabia bought 440,000 tonnes of wheat, thought to be mostly EU and Russian origin, nothing from the US due to our uncompetitive prices as well as our higher freight (shipping) cost.

Up to 2" of rain was scattered across northern and southern Brazil over the weekend. Yesterday, up to 1" fell in the north, up to 1 1/2" was seen in the south. More is forecast in the south today and tomorrow, followed by drier weather through the weekend. More rain is predicted in the north starting tomorrow or Thursday and continuing through the weekend. Argentina was hot and dry Fri-Sun. Scattered rain fell yesterday, up to 1.5", in parts of the grain belt. More hot and dry weather is forecast today through Sunday, increasing concern about a change from beneficial to bad weather, as happened last year, devastating the bean crop. One year ago, Argentina was expecting a roughly 50 million tonne bean crop but the drought cut the actual harvest to just 32 million tonnes. The current USDA Argentine bean guess is 53 million tonnes.