EU Wheat Ends Near Unchanged Friday

EU wheat futures finished with little change on Friday with November Paris milling wheat futures down EUR0.75 at EUR123.00/tonne, and London November feed wheat closing unchanged at GBP99.00/tonne.

On the week as a whole London wheat gained GBP1.50/tonne and Paris wheat EUR1.75/tonne.

London wheat has been helped by a sharply weaker pound, which came in for another pasting on Friday. Sterling slumped below $1.60 against the dollar and edged ever closer to parity against the euro, with one euro now worth more than 92 pence.

Despite the demise of the pound UK wheat is still struggling to compete on the export front. However with the NFU now pegging the UK wheat crop this season at just 13.9 MMT, the need to export isn't as pressing as it was last year.

Much of the week's activity has been down to nervous short-covering. All the rhetoric about current prices being non-competitive goes out of the window if you're short and need wheat tomorrow.

The November London future up GBP8/tonne in little more than a fortnight, whilst November Paris wheat is up a more modest EUR4/tonne in the same time frame.