EU Wheat Close

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 19:02 | Categorized as

25/11/10 -- Jan11 London wheat closed GBP3.15 higher at GBP174.65/tonne, with Nov11 up GBP3.95 to GBP149.00/tonne. Jan11 Paris wheat rose EUR2.25 to EUR218.25/tonne and Nov11 was EUR1.25 higher at EUR196.00/tonne.

This was the highest front month close for London wheat since April 2008. It was a low volume day with the US markets shut for Thanksgiving, and many traders also expected to be absent tomorrow when Chicago will trade a shortened session.

The euro was under pressure again on concerns over Ireland, Portugal and Spain - amongst others.

Much colder weather and snow arrived, as was forecast, which just helped underpin the market. London gained relative to Paris wheat as the differential between the two continues to narrow.

Brussels announced that they'd agreed to sell 223,000 MT of intervention grain on the first day of tenders. There were plenty of bids apparently, with five of the countries concerned getting interest for the entire volume on offer.

In addition they said that export licences had been issued for 351,000 MT of soft wheat during the past week. That takes the total for the current marketing year to 9.6 MMT, up by more than a third on a year ago.

The IGC left their world wheat production estimate unchanged at 644 MMT, but raised consumption by 2 MMT to 660 MMT. Global ending stocks are seen down 16 MMT on last season. World corn output was cut by 4 MMT from last month to 810 MMT, with ending stocks pegged at 121 MMT, 31 MMT down on last season.