EU Wheat Closing Comments
May London feed wheat closed GBP0.80 lower Wednesday at GBP96.25/tonne; May Paris milling wheat EUR0.25 higher at EUR126.50/tonne; Paris corn was up EUR0.25 at EUR137.50/tonne; Paris rapeseed EUR0.50 higher at EUR311.00/tonne.
Euro weakness helped to keep Paris grains in positive territory, although a firmer pound pressured London wheat.
A gap is opening up between the Tories and Labour in the opinion polls, which seems to indicate that a hung parliament is less likely at the upcoming election. That lent a bit of strength to sterling, at least for the time being.
Spillover support came from last week's news of French, and even UK wheat, managing to find it's way into a variety of unusual exotic export locations from the Philippines to Thailand and assorted South American destinations.
That seems to have fostered the belief that EU wheat is now cheap enough to compete with anything.
Whilst Ukraine seems to have effectively more or less run out of wheat to export until new crop comes along, reports of Russian defaults may have been exaggerated. Certainly they won the lion's share of a 400,000 Iraqi tender a few days ago.
Now that the weather has finally warmed up and turned a bit more spring-like EU farmers seem generally happy to forget about the markets and get on with some fieldwork. So if you want spot wheat you are going to have to pay up.
Euro weakness helped to keep Paris grains in positive territory, although a firmer pound pressured London wheat.
A gap is opening up between the Tories and Labour in the opinion polls, which seems to indicate that a hung parliament is less likely at the upcoming election. That lent a bit of strength to sterling, at least for the time being.
Spillover support came from last week's news of French, and even UK wheat, managing to find it's way into a variety of unusual exotic export locations from the Philippines to Thailand and assorted South American destinations.
That seems to have fostered the belief that EU wheat is now cheap enough to compete with anything.
Whilst Ukraine seems to have effectively more or less run out of wheat to export until new crop comes along, reports of Russian defaults may have been exaggerated. Certainly they won the lion's share of a 400,000 Iraqi tender a few days ago.
Now that the weather has finally warmed up and turned a bit more spring-like EU farmers seem generally happy to forget about the markets and get on with some fieldwork. So if you want spot wheat you are going to have to pay up.