EU Wheat Falls As US Weather Shows Signs Of Improvement
06/05/13 - It was London's turn to take a day off today, with the French having celebrated May Day last week.
Paris wheat closed with front month May 13 down EUR3.00/tonne at EUR245.75/tonne and new crop Nov 13 EUR3.75/tonne easier to EUR209.25/tonne.
The French market followed US grains lower, after weekend rainfall in the US was a little lighter than anticipated. A warmer and drier outlook for the week ahead should finally allow some significant progress to be made with corn planting in the US.
That isn't likely to show up in tonight's crop progress report from the USDA though, where corn plantings are only expected by the trade to have advanced to around 13-15% complete, up fairly modestly from 5% done a week ago. The slowest in recent history was 14% in the flood year of 1993. Normally US farmers would expect to have 45-50% of the crop planted by now.
The trade will also be looking to see if there's any further deteriorating in US winter wheat crop conditions when the report comes out after the close of Chicago this evening. Only 33% of the crop was rated as being in good/excellent condition last week.
There's only fairly limited interest around on the wheat export tender front. Egypt failed to show up as a buyer on Friday or over the weekend, which is contrary to what the trade was expecting. Egypt’s Prime Minister estimated the country's 2013 wheat imports at 4-5 MMT - around half of what they would normally buy. He said that the government had bought 284 TMT of local wheat for domestic stocks between April 1-May 2nd.
Libya are tendering for 50 TMT of milling wheat and a similar quantity of durum wheat, both of optional origin. Algeria seeks 50 TMT of optional origin durum wheat for June/July shipment.
Canada is forecast warmer this week. Stats Canada estimated all wheat stocks there as of Mar 31 at 13.5 MMT, down from 14.65 MMT a year previously. Canadian growers are expected to increase their wheat planted acreage this year if and when the weather improves.
Rain is in the forecast for western Australia but central and eastern areas are seen staying dry for the next 10 days.
India have issued a new tender to sell 110 TMT of wheat. They've had a very lacklustre response to their wheat tenders recently as the government's price aspirations have been too high to make Indian wheat feature into most destinations, apart from very near neighbours like Bangladesh.