The opening call in soybeans Tuesday morning was 10¢ to 13¢ higher. The market is feeding off bullish technical momentum, with speculative buying being a feature on the price rise. The supportive influence of record high prices in Malaysian palm oil futures and the long range forecast targeting a potential moisture blocking ridge moving into the eastern Midwest are serving as the fundamental catalysts.

The market is disregarding historically high planting progress and crop ratings, looking more on long-range concerns amid outlooks for shrinking inventories in the 2007-08 marketing year. However, overbought market conditions may produce some profit-taking if the market fails to attract follow-through buying.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's global ending stock levels for the four main vegoils-palm oil, soybean oil, rapeseed oil {also known as canola), and sunflower seed oil-have fallen for the past several years.

Oilseeds in general, except for rapeseed, are losing acreage globally-cutting production and tightening stocks. In the U.S., soybean planted acreage is forecasted to slip 11% as farmers plant corn for ethanol production. Even when we bounce back on production, we face surging world demand, tied to expanding economies. We think this gives the oilseeds some lasting staying power on higher prices.

Corn will begin trading higher on the strength in beans. Crop conditions remain at high levels, which are not bullish for the market. However, the longer-term weather is supportive for corn, with some forecasts putting a moisture blocking ridge back into their longer-range forecasts.

Parched conditions in Ukraine have been bullish for wheat recently, and a revised crop damage estimate out overnight should provide renewed support. The report said 650,000 hectares of Ukraine's grain crops have been "irreparably damaged" by the drought, and that the extent of the damage is likely to increase because 10 million total hectares have been affected.