EU Wheat Closing Comments

November London wheat closed GBP1.25 higher at GBP111.00/tonne, with November Paris wheat ended EUR1.75 higher at EUR150.25/tonne.

It was another impressive day for EU grains. On the week as a whole Nov London wheat closed GBP7.75/tonne higher and Nov Paris wheat gained EUR10.75/tonne.

The USDA provided the catalyst Wednesday, with a sharply lower June 1st stocks estimate for corn. Since then we have had reports of significantly lower early yields from French, German and eastern European barley harvests.

Anecdotal reports also suggest that the Ukraine OSR harvest isn't going too well either. It seems that a combination of a hard winter and a dry spring is impacting on yields quite badly.

I would guess that much of the recent rally is to do with speculative shorts covering in their positions, as opposed to consumer buying.

The Black Sea harvest is almost upon us, and they will be aggressive sellers no matter what.