EU Wheat Futures Follow CBOT Higher

EU wheat futures closed higher Wednesday, taking their lead from sharply higher CBOT markets and rising crude oil and equities.

Paris November milling wheat closed up EUR2.75 at EUR145.50/tonne. London November feed wheat closed GBP1 higher at GBP89.25/tonne.

European stock markets surged Wednesday with the FTSE-100 index rising 8.1% and France's CAC-40 climbing 9.2% as the dollar weakened ahead of the Fed's half percentage rate cut.

Traders are becoming more optomistic that sterling and the euro have now fallen sufficiently low to make European wheat competitive in the export arena.

Ocean transport costs, as expressed by the Baltic Dry Index, have plunged 90 percent since June 30 on slack demand for shipping containers. The index, which measures rates for dry bulk goods, has now dropped to the lowest since February 2002.

Farmer selling at current levels is sluggish. Those that needed the cash have already sold, the remainder have largely shut the book until the new year.

Crude oil prices in rose more than $5 to $67.94 on the surprise news that U.S. gasoline stocks dropped last week for the first time in five weeks.

Egypt bought 120,000mt of wheat from Russia at $179/tonne.