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American • Data all points to a slowing US economy despite a soaring
Data all points to a slowing US economy despite a soaring stock market and rising consumer confidence
Posted on 19 May 2013
Is the US economic recovery all hot air? The latest economic data from the US economy all points to a slowing economy, not a growing recovery. That’s what you might expect after tax rises and public expenditure cuts. Just because everybody wants a recovery does not make it happen.
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank’s factory activity report in the mid-Atlantic region fell to minus 5.2 in May, a decisive fall in business though not surprising really as new orders have been falling this year. The housing recovery is also not happening.
Housing starts slump
New US home starts plunged by 16.5 per cent to a 853,000-unit annual rate, according to the Commerce Department. Then again the latest data showed a hike in new claims for jobless benefits which grew at the fastest rate for six months. That might be an early sign that the recent better news on jobs is a flash in the pan.
Indeed, economists are now warning that the first quarter recovery in US GDP is failing and slipping back towards the lousy Q4 figure. This is the time-lagged impact of the New Year tax increases and the March cuts in public expenditure working through. It’s not rocket science.
How could anybody possibly expect anything else than a tough economy under such conditions? It beggars belief. But Wall Street has a well known ability to lose touch with reality for a while only to come thumping back to earth later on, costing everybody a huge amount of money and generating massive commissions for brokers.
Inflation falling
Still not persuaded? Look at the 0.4 per cent fall in the Consumer Price Index, the biggest fall since December 2008 when the US was stuck deep in the global financial crisis. That might sound like an good thing. But deflation is a sign of a slowing economy, not a growing economy. Gas prices at the pumps are down by the most since the gobal economic crisis struck.
So when will US stock market investors wake up and realize that their country is going back into recession or at best sticking with economic stagnation? The economic data is starting to pile up and its widespread, comprehensive and conclusive.
Is there any reason on earth why this should be ignored? Apart of course from that heady optimism that afflicts the popular delusions of crowds?
The best selling opportunity in years? That is what some of the smartest investors are saying right now. What goes up will come down and the higher you go the harder you fall!
http://www.arabianmoney.net/us-dollar/2 … onfidence/
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Sun May 19, 2013 2:50 am
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IRS’s Soaring Budget and Refundable Tax Credits
Tad DeHaven
Chris Edwards showed that the Internal Revenue Service’s budget has been soaring and the main culprit is refundable tax credits. The magnitude of refundable tax cuts is obfuscated in the IRS’s budget because only the refunded portion of the credit shows up as an outlay —the rest is recorded as a reduction in revenues.
The Congressional Budget Office released a handy report on refundable tax credits in January. The following table from the report shows the entire magnitude of the tax credit, separating between the refunded portion (outlays) and the reduction in revenues:
As Chris noted, the figure has dropped in recent years with the expiration of temporary “stimulus” tax credits. However, the upward trajectory is projected to resume due to refundable tax credits in the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a, Obamacare).
View full post on Cato @ Liberty
Gold and Silver • Fake U.S Silver Eagle coins soaring through Hamilton
Fake U.S Silver Eagle coins soaring through Hamilton, police say
http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/story/2 … -coin.html
Hamilton Police say they’ve gathered over 500 fake U.S Silver Eagle coins sold across the city over the past few months.
Hamilton coin collectors and pawn shops are getting duped.
Police are warning that fake U.S silver eagle dollar coins have been circulating in the city and have been sold to various establishments over the past few months.
"You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference (with) the naked eye. The coins are actually very high quality fakes," Const. Mike La Combe said in a Hamilton Police YouTube video. "They are silver and nickel-plated, which gives them the look of an actual silver dollar. However, when you cut them open, you can clearly see on the inside, they are brass filled."
The video shows some of the roughly 500 fakes that have been confiscated so far.
"They are worth practically nothing, just a couple cents each," La Combe explained.
LaCombe is a pawn unit investigator and says the coins are being bought online, then sold at "golden" times for the seller when shops are busy or with little staff. During the rush, employees may not have the time to do all the proper authenticity checks, giving criminals the chance to sell fast without getting caught.
"Only buy them from reputable dealers, a place that is established, an expert who works there who knows the difference between real and fake. Don’t buy them off the internet. and don’t buy them from people from the public who aren’t considered experts because more than likely you’re going to get a fake," added Le Combe.
Hamilton Police: real vs. fake
Real coins should all weigh the same, fake coins have varying weights.
Liberty female’s head is different on a fake coin compared to that of an authentic coin.
Stars on the reverse of the coins above the eagle and shield are further spaced apart on a fake, in contrast to a real coin.
Lettering on the fake coin is thinner and less-defined than the real coin
"Scratch" test-filling a part of the coin away to reveal the interior alloy of the coin will often expose the brass on the inside, confirming it is fake
Statistics: Posted by DIGGER DAN — Sun May 05, 2013 9:58 pm
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My Soaring Local Taxes
David Boaz
When I read in my local paper, the Sun Gazette (published in Washington’s Virginia suburbs), that the Arlington County Board was planning to raise property taxes, I prepared the chart below. It shows how my own property taxes have risen since I bought a house in 1997 (with my first tax bill, in 1998, set at 100). 
I had the following letter published this week in the Sun Gazette:
[Arlington] County Board members are discussing raising the real estate tax rate by 5 cents. The Sun Gazette on Feb. 28 published a chart showing that the proposed rate was actually higher in 2000 and 2001. But what you didn’t show was the soaring level of real estate assessments. Property taxes are much higher than they were a decade ago. My first Arlington tax bill was in 1998. My 2012 bill was more than double the 1998 rate–about a 127-percent increase. I think that’s true for most Arlington homeowners. It’s not easy to find past budgets on the county government’s Web site, but I would assume that the county’s revenue has gone up approximately as much. So Arlington isn’t hurting for revenue; it’s just itching to raise spending even faster than tax revenue rises. The Sun Gazette quoted County Board member Libby Garvey saying that a 5-cent tax hike is “a very good compromise.” Not for taxpayers, it isn’t.This pattern happens in many states and localities, of course: they spend money freely in good times, then run into trouble when the economy or the housing boom slows down. As Chris Edwards told a reporter in 2009, states during the preceding years had “repeated the same mistakes they made in the late ’90s, assuming the good times were going to last forever.” And when the money stops rolling in, they don’t want to cut back–so they decide to raise taxes to keep their revenue and spending at the high levels they reached during the boom.
View full post on Cato @ Liberty
Soaring Gasoline Prices: Why the President Wants You to Pay More
Gasoline prices are up 75 cents a gallon since December and now double what they were when President Obama was inaugurated. Motorists in southern California are already paying more than $5 a gallon and prices are headed resolutely skyward. What could be the reason?
First, understand that soaring gasoline prices are not due to double-digit inflation of the type the United States experienced during the administration of Jimmy Carter. Indeed, the prolonged recession and shrinking economy under Barack Obama help keep inflation in check.
Neither are soaring gasoline prices due to an embargo by OPEC, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela or any other oil producer. So motorists’ miseries can’t be blamed on malevolent foreigners trying to punish the Great Satan.
Soaring gasoline prices are definitely not due to a shortage of crude oil. Indeed, new technologies have facilitated extraction from shale deposits and traditional oil fields in the United States.
Soaring gasoline prices cannot be blamed on declining car sales. Indeed, car sales continue to climb and the vast majority of the new vehicles sold are powered by gasoline engines.
Gasoline prices are soaring for a simple reason: that’s what president Barack Obama and his fellow climate-change fundamentalists want. Recall that Steven Chu, Obama’s former energy secretary said the administration had to figure a way to make U.S. gasoline prices equal those of Europe. In climate-change orthodoxy, high gasoline prices force the nation to think about mass transportation, alternative energy sources, electric cars and such.
Gasoline prices will continue to soar because president Obama is likely to reject the Keystone pipeline that would bring 700,000 barrels of crude oil from Canada every day. That would decrease dependence on OPEC but the president has expressed little concern about that. Canada is pushing for U.S. acceptance of the pipeline but the president shows little concern for the economic well being of longstanding friends and allies.
The president no longer faces reelection and climate-change fundamentalists have been demonstrating in Washington and demanding that he reject the pipeline to preserve his environmental legacy. That will be hard for the president to resist. So embattled Americans should look for gasoline prices to climb even higher. That’s what the president wants.
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Federal Reserve Money Printing Is The Real Reason Why The Stock Market Is Soaring
You can thank the reckless money printing that the Federal Reserve has been doing for the incredible bull market that we have seen in recent months. When the Federal Reserve does more “quantitative easing”, it is the financial markets that benefit the most. The Dow and the S&P 500 have both hit levels not seen since 2007 this month, and many analysts are projecting that 2013 will be a banner year for stocks. But is a rising stock market really a sign that the overall economy is rapidly improving as many are suggesting? Of course not. Just because the Federal Reserve has inflated another false stock market bubble with a bunch of funny money does not mean that the U.S. economy is in great shape. In fact, the truth is that things just keep getting worse for average Americans. The percentage of working age Americans with a job has fallen from 60.6% to 58.6% while Barack Obama has been president, 40 percent of all American workers are making $20,000 a year or less, median household income has declined for four years in a row, and poverty in the United States is absolutely exploding. So quantitative easing has definitely not made things better for the middle class. But all of the money printing that the Fed has been doing has worked out wonderfully for Wall Street. Profits are soaring at Goldman Sachs and luxury estates in the Hamptons are selling briskly. Unfortunately, this is how things work in America these days. Our “leaders” seem far more concerned with the welfare of Wall Street than they do about the welfare of the American people. When things get rocky, their first priority always seems to be to do whatever it takes to pump up the financial markets.
When QE3 was announced, it was heralded as the grand solution to all of our economic problems. But the truth is that those running things knew exactly what it would do. Quantitative easing always pumps up the financial markets, and that overwhelmingly benefits those that are wealthy. In fact, a while back a CNBC article discussed a very interesting study from the Bank of England which showed a clear correlation between quantitative easing and rising stock prices…
It said that the Bank of England’s policies of quantitative easing – similar to the Fed’s – had benefited mainly the wealthy.
Specifically, it said that its QE program had boosted the value of stocks and bonds by 26 percent, or about $970 billion. It said that about 40 percent of those gains went to the richest 5 percent of British households.
Many said the BOE’s easing added to social anger and unrest. Dhaval Joshi, of BCA Research wrote that “QE cash ends up overwhelmingly in profits, thereby exacerbating already extreme income inequality and the consequent social tensions that arise from it.”
So should we be surprised that stocks are now the highest that they have been in more than 5 years?
Of course not.
And who benefits from this?
The wealthy do. In fact, 82 percent of all individually held stocks are owned by the wealthiest 5 percent of all Americans.
Unfortunately, all of this reckless money printing has a very negative impact on all the rest of us. When the Fed floods the financial system with money, that causes inflation. That means that the cost of living has gone up even though your paycheck may not have.
If you go to the supermarket frequently, you know exactly what I am talking about. The new “sale prices” are what the old “regular prices” used to be. They keep shrinking many of the package sizes in order to try to hide the inflation, but I don’t think many people are fooled. Our food dollars are not stretching nearly as far as they used to, and we can blame the Federal Reserve for that.
For much more on rising prices in America, please see this article: “Somebody Should Start The ‘Stuff Costs Too Much’ Party“.
Sadly, this is what the Federal Reserve does. The system was designed to create inflation. Before the Federal Reserve came into existence, the United States never had an ongoing problem with inflation. But since the Fed was created, the United States has endured constant inflation. In fact, we have come to accept it as “normal”. Just check out the amazing chart in the video posted below…
The chart in that video kind of reminds me of a chart that I shared in a previous article…
Not that I expect the United States to enter a period of hyperinflation in the near future.
Actually, despite all of the reckless money printing that the Fed has been doing, I expect that at some point we are going to see another wave of panic hit the financial markets like we saw back in 2008. The false stock market bubble will burst, major banks will fail and the financial system will implode. It could unfold something like this…
1 – A derivatives panic hits the “too big to fail” banks.
2 – Financial markets all over the globe crash.
3 – The credit markets freeze up.
4 – Economic activity in the United States starts to grind to a halt.
5 – Unemployment rises above 20 percent and mortgage defaults soar to unprecedented levels.
6 – Tax revenues fall dramatically and austerity measures are implemented by the federal government, state governments and local governments.
7 – The rest of the globe rapidly loses confidence in the U.S. financial system and begins to dump U.S. debt and U.S. dollars.
I write about derivatives a lot, because they are one of the greatest threats that the global financial system is facing. In fact, right now a derivatives scandal is threatening to take down the oldest bank in the world…
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the world’s oldest bank, was making loans when Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were young men and before Columbus sailed to the New World. The bank survived the Italian War, which saw Siena’s surrender to Spain in 1555, the Napoleonic campaign, the Second World War and assorted bouts of plague and poverty.
But MPS may not survive the twin threats of a gruesomely expensive takeover gone bad and a derivatives scandal that may result in legal action against the bank’s former executives. After five centuries of independence, MPS may have to be nationalized as its losses soar and its value sinks.
So when you hear the word “derivatives” in the news, pay close attention. The bankers have turned our financial system into a giant casino, and at some point the entire house of cards is going to come crashing down.
In response to the coming financial crisis, I believe that our “leaders” will eventually resort to money printing unlike anything we have ever seen before in a desperate attempt to resuscitate the system. When that happens, I believe that we will see the kind of rampant inflation that so many people have been warning about.
So what do you think about all of this?
Do you believe that Federal Reserve money printing is the real reason why the stock market is soaring?
Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below…
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Agriculture • With Farm Bill Stalled, Consumers May Face Soaring Milk Pri
With Farm Bill Stalled, Consumers May Face Soaring Milk Prices
If Congress cannot pass a new farm bill, a 1949 one will go into effect and prices could reach $6 to 8 a gallon.
By RON NIXON
Published: December 20, 2012
WASHINGTON — Forget the fiscal crisis and the automatic budget cuts. Come Jan. 1, there is a threat that milk prices could rise to $6 to $8 a gallon if Congress does not pass a new farm bill that amends farm policy dating back to the Truman presidency.
The government sets a minimum price for milk to cover dairy farmers’ production costs.
Lost in the political standoff between the Obama administration and Congressional Republicans over the budget is a virtually forgotten impasse over a farm bill that covers billions of dollars in agriculture programs. Without last-minute Congressional action, the government would have to follow an antiquated 1949 farm law that would force Washington to buy milk at wildly inflated prices, creating higher prices in the dairy case. Milk now costs an average of $3.65 a gallon.
Higher prices would be based on what dairy farm production costs were in 1949, when milk production was almost all done by hand. Because of adjustments for inflation and other technical formulas, the government would be forced by law to buy milk at roughly twice the current market prices to maintain a stable milk market.
But the market would be anything but stable. Farmers, at first, would experience a financial windfall as they rushed to sell dairy products to the government at higher prices than those they would get on the commercial market. Then the prices customers pay at the supermarket would surge as shortages developed and fewer gallons of milk were available for consumers and for manufacturers of products like cheese and butter.
For dairy farmers like Dean Norton in upstate New York, who are struggling with high feed costs caused by this summer’s drought, a jump in prices would be welcomed.
“But it would be short-term euphoria followed by a long hangover that would be difficult for us to recover from,” said Mr. Norton, who is president of the New York Farm Bureau. “I don’t think customers and food processors are going to pay double what they are paying now for dairy products.”
The Senate passed a farm bill in July. A House version of the bill made it out of committee, but House leaders have yet to bring its version to the floor.
Under the current program, the government sets a minimum price to cover dairy farmers’ production costs. If the market price drops below that, the government buys dairy products from farmers to buoy prices and increase demand. Since milk prices have remained above that minimum price in recent years, dairy farmers usually do better by selling their products commercially rather than to the government.
But if 1949 rules go into effect, the government would be required to buy dairy products at around $40 per hundredweight — roughly twice the current market price — to drive up the price of milk to cover dairy producers’ cost.
“It would be bad for consumer demand in the long run,” said Chris Galen, a spokesman for the National Milk Producers Federation, which represents more than 32,000 dairy farmers.
Mr. Galen and others in the dairy industry said reverting to 1949 policies could probably force the makers of butter, cheese, yogurt and other dairy products to look for cheaper alternatives, like imported milk from countries like New Zealand.
Most dairy companies declined to discuss plans to buy dairy supplies from abroad if they are forced to pay higher prices for milk.
But Land O’ Lakes, a dairy company based in Arden Hills, Minn., said the 1949 law could be potentially disruptive for dairy industry operations.
“Congress needs to pass a comprehensive farm bill that helps farmers continue to feed the world, keeps food prices affordable and provides farmers some financial stability in the very unpredictable profession of farming,” said Rebecca Lentz, a company spokeswoman.
In a conference call with reporters on Thursday, Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, said the department was exploring all its options to deal with the possibility of the 1949 law going into effect.
“We will do whatever we are legally obligated to do,” said Mr. Vilsack, who declined to say what specific steps the department would take to prepare for what dairy lobbyists and industry officials are calling the “milk cliff.”
Among the options: the agriculture secretary could drag his heels on the milk purchases until Congress passes a new farm bill or an extension of the 2008 one that expired in September, said Vincent Smith, a professor of agriculture at Montana State University in Bozeman.
“This is a totally antiquated law that has nothing to do with farming conditions today,” Professor Smith said. “It was put as a poison pill to get Congress to pass a farm bill by scaring lawmakers with the prospect of higher support prices for milk and other agriculture products. Letting it go into effect for even a few months would be particularly disastrous for consumers and food processors. “
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/us/mi … ml?hp&_r=0
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Fri Dec 21, 2012 10:48 am
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Agriculture • Dryness concerns send wheat price soaring 6%
Dryness concerns send wheat price soaring 6%
Wheat prices soared 6% in Chicago to their highest since September, and in Paris to its highest for nearly a year, amid continued concerns over the dry weather threatening a range of producing countries.
Chicago’s July wheat contract came within 3 cents of regaining $7 a bushel before easing to end at $6.95 ¼, up 5.7% on the day and 17% for the week, its strongest weekly gain since the 1990s.
Kansas hard red winter wheat soared 4.8%, while Minneapolis spring wheat closed up 3.2%.
In Paris, the benchmark November contact closed 4.0% higher at E215.25 a tonne, the contract’s highest close since June, while London wheat gained 3.3% to £158.80 a tonne.
‘Mildly concerned’
The rises came amid continued concerns for crops in major producing countries facing a lack of rain.
Wheat prices of close on Friday
Chicago: $6.95 ¼ a bushel, +5.7%
Kansas: $7.05 a bushel, +4.9%
Paris: E215.25 a tonne, +4.0%
Minneapolis: $7.92 a bushel, +3.2%
London: £158.80 +3.3%
Prices for July contract on US exchanges, and November lot in Europe
US Commodities, saying it was "mildly concerned", clocked fears dryness in the US southern Plains, Europe, Russia, and northern China, along with parts of the north west US Corn Belt and Canadian Prairies".
The broker added: "Remember it was the hot and dry weather in 2010 that eventually caused the worst drought in 100 years in Russia and the start of the two-year bull market [in grains].
In Russia, Alexander Tkachev, regional governor for the southern Russian region of Krasnodar, has estimated that the dryness may cut dryness by 27%.
‘Little opportunity for relief’
In the US, while major winter wheat production losses to dry weather look unlikely so late in the season, with harvest already under way in southern areas, the dryness has scotched hopes of near-record yields.
In Oklahoma , Jeff Edwards wheat specialist at Oklahoma State University Extension, estimated the state’s average yield coming in at 36 bushels an acre, compared with a figure above 40 bushels an acre it would have achieved with more benign late conditions.
And forecasts show that crops yet to be harvested look unlikely to receive rain refreshment
"Little opportunity for relief is offered to the southern Plains and southern portions of the Midwest for the next week to 10 days," Benson Quinn Commodities said.
"Rain events are expected to be confined to northern regions of the US."
http://www.agrimoney.com/news/dryness-c … -4540.html
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Fri May 18, 2012 9:05 pm
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Oil And Gas • Soaring Crude Oil Inventories
Bloomberg.com – Unlocking the Crude Oil Bottleneck at Cushing
The U.S. oil infrastructure is the product of four decades of rising imports and falling domestic supply. As those trends have reversed over the last few years, America’s network of pipelines has failed to keep pace. Designed in part to ferry oil and refined gasoline from the coasts to the interior, those pipelines are now ill-equipped to handle the enormous amount of crude gushing from shale reserves in North Dakota and Texas. Which is why so much of that oil ends up trapped in the central Oklahoma town of Cushing, the primary crude oil storage hub for the U.S. Cushing developed as an oil trading center and then as the official price settlement point for West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark that most types of North American crude are priced against. Cushing is now best known as a bottleneck for the energy industry: Oil rushes in, but trickles out. There are now more than 44 million barrels of oil stuck in Cushing, a record, and 60 percent more than was stored there just five months ago. Overall U.S. crude inventories now sit at a 21-year high. Pipeline companies are racing to build new projects aimed at pushing more oil through Cushing toward refineries as part of a larger effort to revamp America’s oil infrastructure. The first of those projects goes online this week when the flow of the 500-mile Seaway pipeline is reversed. Seaway, with a diameter of 30 inches, was built in 1976 to take crude south from the Texas Gulf Coast north into Cushing. On May 17, about 150,000 barrels of oil will be injected into Seaway at Cushing. Twelve days later, that oil will start arriving in Freeport, Tex., along the Gulf Coast, where refiners can access it. As the pump stations provide more horsepower and increase the pipe’s pressure later this year, the oil will travel faster, taking just five days to reach Freeport and increasing Seaway’s capacity to 400,000 barrels per day by early 2013. By mid-2014, that flow is expected to reach 850,000 barrels a day.
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Fri May 18, 2012 9:32 am
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Agriculture • Huge corn deal, US frost send grain prices soaring
Huge corn deal, US frost send grain prices soaring
Ag futures soared – with soybeans prices returning back over $15 a bushel for the first time in nearly four years and corn and wheat futures soaring more than 3% – after a flourish of importer orders and a hard frost dents hopes for US supplies.
Chicago soybeans for May hit $15.09 a bushel at one point, the highest for a spot contract since July 2008, before losing ground in later deals.
Corn for May rose 5%, recovering its losses of the past two weeks, while wheat gained nearly 3%.
The rally followed the US Department of Agriculture’s unveiling export orders for US corn of 1.56m tonnes – the biggest one-day sales in 20 years.
‘Certainly looks like China’
While most was booked to "unknown destinations", the corn was presumed by investors as sold to China, which booked a confirmed order of 120,000 tonnes, and took to 2.8m tonnes US corn sales revealed this week through its daily alert system, which applies to larger orders.
Friday’s closing oilseed, grain prices
Chicago corn, May: $6.53 a bushel, +5.0%
Chicago corn, July: $6.25 ½ a bushel, +3.0%
Chicago wheat, May: $6.42 ¼ a bushel, +2.6%
Paris wheat: May: E213.75 a tonne, +1.3%
Chicago soybeans, May: $14.96 ¾ a bushel, +1.1%
London wheat: May: £178.50 a tonne, +0.6%
Chicago has continued to echo to rumours this week of corn sales of some 2m tonnes to China, the world’s second-ranked corn user, whose growing demand for the grain, largely to feed its pig herd and meet growing demand for pork, has tested its historic self-sufficiency.
"It certainly looks like China, and that’s the way the market is taking it," Jerry Gidel, feed grains analyst at broker Rice Dairy, said.
‘Dramatic inverse’
At Country Futures, Darrell Holaday said: "The buying from China has been a shot in the arm for the corn market," noting in particular the jump in the close-to-expiry May contract, which gained nearly $0.13 a bushel on the day over the July lot.
Typically, the July contract would hold the premium over the nearer-term contract.
"The short squeeze in the May corn contract has become one of the most dramatic inverses in history," Mr Holaday said.
Rival broker US Commodities noted that corn prices on China’s Dalian exchange closed overnight "near record highs", and at the equivalent of more than $9.60 a bushel, with soybeans priced above $19.20 a bushel.
Record bookings
Indeed, the USDA also confirmed export orders of 216,000 tonnes of soybeans, half to China – the day after releasing weekly sales figures which, at 1.4m tonnes, trounced market expectations and stoked expectations of an upgrade to trade forecasts.
Friday’s sales were actually for soybeans from this year’s harvest, taking total commitments for 2012-13 so far to 8m tonnes, four months before the marketing year even begins, and before most of the crop has been sown.
Indeed, the level of advance orders is a record at this stage, and equivalent to roughly 20-25% of what the US might expect to ship during the season.
The appetite for importers to book so far ahead reflects a disappointing South American harvest, which is continuing to attract downgrades following frost in Argentina, which has further damaged unharvested crops tested already by drought.
‘Hard freeze’
Frost has also hit parts of the US, representing a serious threat to winter wheat crops which, thanks to an unusually warm start to spring, have developed some two weeks ahead of schedule.
"A hard freeze developed overnight in key Midwest wheat states – Ohio, Michigan and Indiana," Gail Martell, at Martell Crop Projections, said, noting that 19% of wheat in Indiana had reached the headed stage of development.
Rice Dairy’s Mr Gidel said: "When wheat gets to the jointing stage it needs some four hours at 28 degrees Fahrenheit or less to damage it. When it is headed, it just needs about 30 Fahrenheit for a couple of hours."
Ohio, Michigan and Indiana between them produce some 30% of soft red winter wheat, the type traded in Chicago, and areas further south growing hard red winter wheat, as traded in Kansas, may be hit by the next wave of frost this evening.
Ms Martell said: "Temperatures may fall into the low or mid 30s Fahrenheit tonight in north west and west-central Kansas," adding that "adjacent wheat areas in Colorado and western Nebraska also may be subject to frost", if not as severe a freeze as that which hit the Midwest states last night.
http://www.agrimoney.com/news/huge-corn … -4457.html
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Fri Apr 27, 2012 1:30 pm
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