June 7, 2010

The disappointing US non-farm payroll data released on Friday (June 4) underpinned investors' concern that the US and global economic recovery remained weak, which may restrain overall overseas demand of US grain exports.

Meanwhile, the comments of a key Hungarian official that Hungary' s economy is in a very grave situation has ignited the fear of contagion over Greece's debt crisis, and triggered selling in energy, equity and many other commodity markets. Euro has hit a fresh four-year low against dollar. A sharply higher dollar has also kept a lid on grain prices on Friday.

USDA said on Friday in a report that weekly export sales of corn in the week ended May 27 totalled 313,100 tonnes, which was far below trade expectations. Weekly export sales of wheat came in at a very disappointing minus 53,200 tonnes for the current marketing year.