-Palm oil soars overnight pulling SBO higher
-No USDA sales announcements
-South Korea continues to pick up corn cargoes
ï‚· Palm oil was the overnight attention-getter with Malaysian and Dalian futures up roughly 2.5-3.0%, pulling soybean oil along higher, as well. Benchmark Malaysian futures hit a 3+ year high on the overnight strength. Focus continues on expected limited palm oil production gains in Indonesia and potentially lower Malaysian production in 2020, while global demand for palm oil remains strong. Both Indonesia and Malaysia plan to raise their biodiesel blending mandates in 2020 (Indonesia to a B30 blend from B20, Malaysia to B20 from B10), with fully implemented mandate increases potentially adding 2.5-3.0 MMT in Indonesian palm oil demand annually and Malaysian palm oil usage rising 500k+ tonnes annually with the new mandate. Widely-followed analyst James Fry said he sees Rotterdam crude palm oil prices rising to around $750/tonne by the 2nd quarter of 2020, but already spiked to $710/tonne overnight, a $35/tonne daily jump.
 Brazilian ag consultant ARC Mercosul put the country’s soybean planting progress at 71% complete as of last Friday vs 73% average and 83% last year.
ï‚· The Buenos Aires Grains Exchange said the Argentine corn crop is 44% planted, which is generally in line with average.
ï‚· There were no USDA sales announcements this morning.
ï‚· South Korea bought another 65k tonnes of optional-origin corn at $204.69/tonne c&f for Jan-Feb shipment overnight. Another South Korean feedmill bought 65k tonnes overnight, as well, at $203.80/tonne for Dec-Jan shipment. Syria tendered to by 150k tonnes of Russian wheat.
Weather Brazilian growing regions look to see rains of 1-2†fall in most of Mato Grosso, Goias, Minas Gerais and northern Sao Paulo in the next 5 days, with little in the way of rainfall elsewhere. The 6-10 day sees rains of 1-2†to fall across all areas. Argentine growing regions look to see rains of .50-1â€+ fall across all but Corrientes with a front that will work through tomorrow. The weekend looks to be fairly quiet and then another front is indicated to bring rains of 1-2†to all areas by Monday and Tuesday. Things are then indicated to quiet down for the rest of next week. Temps will be running near average in most of the South American growing regions in the next 10 days. The corn belt looks to be mainly dry through most of today and then by later today into tomorrow, an area of low pressure will spread rains into most of the region. Totals with that system look to be in the 40-1â€+ range in most cases, but there is also a rather large area that looks to see less than .40†fall, that being central IL, northern IN and much of MI. Things will quiet back down for Friday and the weekend. The models remain in good agreement on the general idea of an area of low pressure to bring rains to much of the region by Tuesday and another to work through by later Thursday into Friday of next week. Both of those systems look to impact MN, IA and WI with rains and snows, with only light rains now sees for the rest of the region