EU Wheat Closing Comments

It was a boring end to a boring first week of 2010 with March Paris milling wheat futures closed Friday's session down EUR0.25 at EUR133.75/tonne and London March feed wheat futures ended down GBP0.20 at GBP109.25/tonne.

The pound closed the week a little lower against the dollar, with the euro a tad higher. It's been relatively uneventful overall on the currency front too, although US jobs data today sent the greenback tumbling.

Heavy snow and widespread sub-zero temperatures across large parts of the UK and Europe have the trade second guessing on demand from the feed sector and any potential crop damage.

Some media reports suggest that we may also see significant livestock losses, which would have a negative impact on feed demand. Although that is probably just the newspapers being hysterical. Hysteria sells as we know. Who can forget the swine flu pandemic, salmonella in eggs or BSE?

The anticipated wave of new 2010 fund buying in US futures has so far failed to manifest itself to any great degree. It seems quite sad that this is the best thing that we appear to have to hang our hats on for a post-spring rally.