With unfriendly outside market uncertainty, combined with weaker overnight trade, the CME Group corn, soybean and wheat markets are expected to start lower Thursday. 

However, stronger export sales could help curb deep sell-offs.

The Early Calls for the commodities on Thursday, December 8, 2011, are lower. Corn is seen opening 5-7 cents lower, soybeans 4-6 cents lower, and wheat 5-7 cents lower.

In overnight electronic trading, the March corn futures contract traded 5 1/4 cents lower at $5.87 1/2 per bushel. The Jan. soybean futures contract traded 4 cents lower at $11.27 per bushel. The March wheat futures contract traded 7 1/4 cents lower at $5.93 1/4. For Jan. soymeal futures, the contract traded $1.30 per short ton lower at $283.90 and Jan. soyoil $0.32 lower at $50.16. 

The outside markets are unfavorable for Thursday's grain trade. The real factors driving the calls will be the lower overnight markets

The USDA released market-friendly export numbers Thursday. In its Weekly Export Sales Report, the USDA estimated U.S. corn sales at 708,000 mt, compared to the trade estimates of 500,000 metric tons (mt).

USDA estimates soybean sales, in the last 10 days at 795,600 mt vs. the trade's expectation of 450,000 mt.

Wheat exports are estimated at 427,200 mt vs. the trade's expectations of 400,000 mt. And, soyoil exports were recorded at 18,500 metric tons.

As corn exports show improvement, U.S. ethanol production is up. In the last week, ethanol production averaged 954,000 barrels per day (b/d) – or 40.068 million gallons daily.  That is up 24,000 b/d from the previous week and an all-time record, according to the Energy Information Agency.

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