-China pig crop shows first monthly increase in a year
-Palm oil continues to rally – trades premium to SBO for 1st time since 2011
-CFTC data shows funds heavy soybean sellers
-Brazil continues to see very good rains, eye on lack of widespread Argentine rains
-USDA report tomorrow – trade estimate summary included
-No USDA sales announcements
USDA’s monthly WASDE report will be out tomorrow at 11:00 AM CT. Our pre-report commentary can be found on Market Insights at https://portal.rjobrien.com/MarketInsights/Blog/Read/38250. A summary of the average trade estimates is on the following page. The next round of import tariffs on Chinese products is set to go in place on Sunday so it could be an active week of headline reading as a Phase One deal is sought ahead of the deadline.
ï‚· Preliminary data showed China imported 8.28 MMT of soybean in November vs 6.18 MMT in October and 5.38 MMT last year Nov, putting JanNov calendar year-to-date imports at 79.1 MMT vs 82.3 MMT last year. Total vegoil imports were 1.059 MMT vs 912k tonnes in October and 622k tonnes last year November.
 The EPA submitted their official 2020 biofuel blending mandate proposal to the OMB for final approval, with EPA officials saying it is “similar†to the initial proposal made public in October. Tweaks can still be made prior to final approval, which is expected sometime in January. A full accounting of past small refiner waiver grants does not appear to be in the proposal, as was sought by corn/ethanol interests.
 China said the country’s pig crop in November was up 2% from October, the first monthly increase in pig numbers since a minor increase a year ago November. The pig crop is still around 40% below year ago levels based on China’s estimates. Pig numbers in large-scale operations saw a similar increase in Nov of 1.9%. The sow crop was up 4% from Oct to Nov, the 2nd consecutive monthly increase in the breeding stock, with large-scale operations’ sow numbers up 6.1% from Oct to Nov.
 Friday’s CFTC Disaggregated COT data for the week ended 12/03/19 showed funds heavy net sellers in soybeans of 56.1k contracts, pushing their net short to 99k contracts, the largest since late May 2019. Funds were also net sellers of 11.6k contracts in SBM (net short 43.9k), 7.7k soybean oil (net long 59.2k) and 1.9k MPLS wheat (net short 22.5k – just shy of the record net short of 23.1k). Funds were net buyers of 30.9 contracts in corn (net short 85.1k), 10.1k CBOT wheat (net long 20.6k) and 2.6k KCBT wheat (net short 14.3k).
ï‚· SovEcon estimates Russia will export 2.2 MMT of wheat in December vs 2.522 MMT in Nov and well below year ago Dec exports of 3.773 MMT.
 Strategie Grains sees the EU 2020/21 rapeseed crop rebounding to 18.5 MMT from this year’s historically poor 16.9 MMT (13-year low), but still below 20.0 MMT in 2018/19. Planted area is expected to rise 2.7% to 5.68 million hectares (14.0 mil acres).
ï‚· Malaysian palm oil futures rallied further overnight, posting 1.5%+ gains, and hitting a near 3-year high. Benchmark Feb closed at 2,902 ringgit/tonne ($696.40), reflecting a slight premium to Jan soybean oil futures (31.46 cents/lb ~ $693.35/tonne), as palm oil futures have not traded at a premium to SBO since February 2011.
ï‚· Malaysian palm oil/product exports in November were 1.410 MMT, down from 1.522 MMT in October, but above year ago Nov exports of 1.241 MMT. ï‚· The European Union officially set anti-subsidy duties on Indonesian biodiesel imports at 8-18%, in line with the proposed rates in August.
ï‚· There were no USDA sales announcements this morning.
Weather Brazil saw rains of .50-1â€, isolated to 1â€+, fall across all but RGDS, Sao Paulo and eastern Minas Gerais over the weekend. Rains of .50-1.5â€+ are expected for most regions from Parana north in the next 5 days with mainly dry conditions in most of RGDS and Santa Catarina. Another .50-1â€+ is expected for most areas in the 6-10 day period, with only light totals seen for most of Minas Gerais and eastern Goias. Dry weather dominated most of the Argentine growing regions over the weekend, with some rains of .25-.75†in northern Santa Fe and Entre Rios. Other than showers bringing totals of .30-1†to the northern ½ of Santa Fe and most of Entre Rios by around Thursday of this week, the Argentine growing regions look to be dry for this period. Dry weather looks to continue across the southern ½ of the Argentine growing regions in the 6-10 day period, with rains of .50-1.5†indicated to fall across the northern 1/3 to ½ of Santa Fe, Entre Rios and most of Corrientes.