Strong demand and follow-through from mostly higher overnight grain markets puts the CME Group corn, soybean and wheat markets in good position to start higher Thursday.

The Early Calls for the commodities on Thursday, May 3, 2012, are higher. 

Corn is seen opening 3-5 cents higher, soybeans 3-5 cents higher and wheat 4-6 cents higher.

In overnight trading, the July corn futures contract traded 3/4 of a cent higher at $6.12 1/4 per bushel. July soybean futures traded 2 3/4 cents lower at $14.82 1/4 per bushel, and July wheat traded 3 cents higher at $6.17 1/2. For July soybean meal futures, the contract traded $0.70 per short ton lower at $429.00. July soybean oil futures traded $0.12 lower at $54.59.

The outside markets are mostly unfriendly for Thursday's grain trade. The real factors driving the calls will be the higher overnight markets and strong weekly export sales.

On Thursday, the USDA estimated U.S. weekly corn sales at 3.47 mmt compared to the trade's expectations of 2.6-3.3 million metric tons (mmt).

For soybeans, USDA pegged weekly sales at 1.732 mmt vs. the trade's expectations of 900,000-1.4 mmt.

Wheat exports, since last week, were estimated at 711,500 mt vs. the trade's expectation of 550,000-850,000 mt.

Discuss the corn, soybean and wheat markets in Marketing Talk.