Well lets start with the USDA report. The numbers were VERY bearish, but the market actually traded higher briefly. Currently corn is off 2 and wheats are down3-4. CORN: Corn carryouts jumped to 1.799 byn bu (83 myn bu increase vs. last month). This was accomplished by reducing exports by 100 myn bu, and slightly trimming production by 20 myn bu to 164.9 or a drop of .3 bpa (still 9 bpa higher than ’08 crop). We get to put an asterisk by that number. You may remember that the USDA was going to re-survey a number of states. North and South Dakota were NOT included in the re-survey results. I did talk to a guy that was harvesting corn in North Dakota (he said 200 bpa), the % moisture was down 8% over the course of the winter, and test weights were up 2#/ bu…all which sounds within reason. The only question, is trying to quantify the field losses or reconciling actual production vs. estimated numbers. Corn usage numbers of 13 byn bu means we need 87.8 myn acres or so on the upcoming 3/31 prospective planting report. A number bigger is bad, smaller is good. WHEAT: Increased wheat carryouts by another 29 myn bu…gives us over 1 BYN bu in carryout stocks! They reported a 20 myn bu decrease in domestic FOOD use. This number is generally pretty stable, but looking back through history 920-940 is the range, this simply puts us in the bottom end of the range. They did tweak the ‘by class’ numbers….took HRW exports up 10 myn bu, but SWW exports down 10 myn bu. Overnight Egypt booked 2.2 myn bu of French wheat and a like amount from Russia at $4.59 and 4.48 respectively.

FAPRI is estimating US 2010 corn/ bean production at 13.13 byn bu on 89.5 myn acres (160.3 bpa yield) and 3.2 byn beans.

Minister of Ukraine AG said they rated the Ukraine winter wheat at 45% good, and 44% satisfactory. 11% is rated poor. UG99 (wheat rust) still has not made it to India/ Pakistan, though it sounds like it is only a matter of time (spores being carried in the wind). Iran has already reported cases of UG99. Pakistan is actually the bigger concern, because such a huge majority of the wheat they plant tends to be a single variety.

The ‘rollout’ plan for the volatility index looks like: specific indexes by the 3^rd ¼ of 2010. Specific caks; gold, crude, beans, corn by mid next year (July or so of 2011).