Which market influence to take note of?

Agricultural commodity investors on Friday face an overload of stimuluses already marked on the calendar, before getting down to any unscheduled surprises.

The calendar holds three. It is the last trading day of the month, a time when funds are often viewed as withdrawing a little money, ahead of early-month cash injections, as part of a tidying up exercise, rebalancing positions and raising cash to pay clients.

As a further reason for caution, a long weekend lies ahead in the US, which celebrates Labor Day on Monday, meaning three days without trading, and potentially low volumes today.

And it is first notice day for Chicago's September contracts, which kicks off the expiry process, and brings an idea of demand for physical delivery or purchases against contracts.

In soybeans at least, "first notice day deliveries are expected to be very light Friday due to the tight supply," Ker Chung Yang at Phillip Futures said.

Macro data

Then there is the meeting of central bankers at Jackson Hole to worry about, a session which will be studied for any hint of willingness to ease monetary policy and stimulate economic growth.

German retail sales data on Friday only underlined the difficulties alive in the world economy, showing a decline for the European Union's largest economy of 0.9%, compared with expectations of a 0.2% rise.

And this before getting down to the usual trickle of results from the US harvest, and the Russian agriculture ministry meeting later over which there is some expectation of taxes on shipments, despite protests from the likes of Ros Agro chief executive Maxim Basov.

'Export should dry up very quickly'

Paris-based consultancy Agritel, which has an office in Kiev, Ukraine, said that "Russian traders mostly expect a restriction of grain exports from October.

"Many of them believe that no decision will be announced at the end of today's meeting. But recent history has shown that decisions in Moscow are very difficult to predict."

And after all, a downgrade on Thursday of 1m tonnes to 38m tonnes by SovEcon to its estimate for Russia's wheat harvest means that "Russian exports should therefore dry up very quickly", Agritel added.

In the US, Brian Henry at broker Benson Quinn Commodities said: "I don't expect an all-out ban on exports nor do I expect a decision to have any influence on the majority of the sales that are already on the books.

"However, I wouldn't be surprised to see some type of tariff structure implemented. And per earlier reports out of Ukraine, they would likely follow suit in a timely fashion."

'Increasing the anxiety'

Further underpinning prices was the concern over dry weather in Australia, the southern hemisphere's top wheat exporter.

"The 'what if' scenario's regarding how low the Russian wheat production will decline, along with reports earlier this week suggesting that Australia could lose upwards of 6.0m tonnes of production due to the dryness in their western growing areas, has be increasing the anxiety level for the world's flour producers," Benson Quinn Commodities said.

Such thoughts helped wheat hold its ground in early deals, adding 0.3% to $9.06 a bushel for Chicago's December contract as of 09:15 UK time (03:15 Chicago time).

'Wearing on the longs'

Which was actually a little better than fellow grain corn managed, despite some initial concerns over in Brazil, as sowing of the main crop commences, and continued reports of poor yields.

Richard Feltes at RJ O'Brien said: "That initial wave of early corn harvest yield reports has trade predisposed to a corn yield closer to 120 bushels per acre than 125 bushels per acre" when the US Department of Agriculture on September 10 releases its next Wasde crop report.

Hurricane Isaac is hardly expected to have helped matters, bringing wind and rains which may have flattened crops in some areas, and caused some ears to fall, while causing crop-stressing high temperatures further west and north.

Still, "confirmation of a lower ethanol grind, disappointing export sales, reports of more wheat in the feed ration and lacklustre CIF corn basis are collectively wearing on the longs", Mr Feltes added.

Chicago corn for December stood 0.25 cents lower at $8.08 ¼ a bushel, and some 2 cents below the 20-day moving beneath which it closed again last night.

'Brisk pace of demand'

Soybeans showed more definite direction, downwards, as investors faced with the plethora of influences listed above, opted for caution, despite continued concerns over the pace of demand.

US export sales data on Thursday showed a solid figure of 721,400 tonnes for soybeans, at the upper end of market expectations.

"Given only a smattering of soy yield reports thus far, and a pick-up in August Midwest rains, we think the trade is leaning toward a higher soy yield than the USDA's August forecast," Mr Feltes said.

Nonetheless, "the market is concerned less about a possible modest gain in the 2012 US soy crop than by the ongoing brisk pace of US soybean demand".

Still, soybeans fell on profit-taking, by 0.4% to $17.55 ¾ a bushel for November delivery.

Sugar sweetens

In New York, cotton, which as an industrial commodity, is especially sensitive to the macroeconomic mood, dropped too, down 0.4% at 76.66 cents a pound for the December contract.

US weekly export sales data released on Thursday, at 90,000 running bales, were OK, in line with those the previous week.

New York raw sugar for October added 0.8% to 19.91 cents a pound, as investors who have profited from the sweetener's poor performance of late, down 13% in August, took month-end gains, encouraged by weak expectations for output in the Indian state of Maharahstra.

In Tokyo, rubber for February added 0.3% to 218.50 yen a kilogramme,  continuing to benefit from details released late on Wednesday by Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, the three main exporters, of plans to curb shipments by 300,000 tonnes over the October-to-March period.