EU Grains Mostly Down, But Well Off Session Lows

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 19:04 | Categorized as

23/02/11 -- EU wheat closed mostly down, but well off early session lows with Mar London wheat closing GBP2.00 lower at GBP192.00/tonne and new crop Nov down GBP0.75 to GBP159.25/tonne. Mar Paris wheat fell EUR0.25 to EUR246.50/tonne, with Nov down EUR2.25 to EUR213.25/tonne.

Earlier in the day Mar London wheat fell to an intraday low of GBP187.50/tonne, with it's Parisian counterpart declining to EUR230.25/tonne.

Chicago wheat and corn closed the overnight Globex session with losses of around 8-12c and 12-16c respectively on continued unrest and uncertainty in the Middle East. However they reversed those losses late in the day on ideas that prices had fallen too much too quick, flushing out bargain hunters.

Egypt bought 235,000 MT of French/US wheat and Tunisia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia are also in the market.

Brent crude leapt more than USD5/barrel to over USD111/barrel, with NYMEX adding another USD3/barrel.

Most of Libya's 1.1-1.4m barrels/day of exports head for Europe. The situation there remains tense to say the least, with the BBC reporting of gunmen opening fire on things as innocuous as a bread queue outside a bakers in Tripoli.

These are extremely uncertain times and literally anything could happen next it would seem.