EU Grains Mixed - USDA Report Said To Be Not As Bearish As Expected
09/03/16 -- EU grains closed mixed, with London wheat a touch lower and Paris wheat slightly firmer.
At the close of trading, Mar 16 London wheat was down GBP0.30/tonne at GBP101.30/tonne. In Paris, Mar 16 wheat closed EUR0.25/tonne higher at EUR144.50/tonne, Jun 16 corn was up EUR0.75/tonne at EUR153.00/tonne and May 16 rapeseed was down EUR0.25/tonne to EUR351.00/tonne.
Most of the day was spent waiting for the March WASDE report from the USDA, not that it was expected to be a big market mover - and so it proved - with traders saying it was "less bearish than expected" according to Agrimoney.com.
Prior to that it was announced that France had exported 1.1 MMT of soft wheat to non-EU destinations in January. That was a "ho-hum" sort of a volume, being down from 1.3 MMT in December, although still the second highest monthly total of the season so far.
Total Jul/Jan non-EU exports are now 8.1% higher than they were a year ago at 5.7 MMT.
The top home in January this year was Morocco taking 518 TMT, followed by Algeria with 329 TMT.
Jordan were said to have bought 100 TMT of optional origin hard wheat for Aug/Sep shipment.
The USDA report wasn't expected to throw up any big changes - especially so for wheat - and that's pretty much what we got. They won't start giving us any 2016/17 forecasts until May.
World 2015/16 production was tweaked lower, down from last month's 735.8 MMT to 732.3 MMT, although consumption was also dropped around 2 MMT to 709.4 MMT.
On an EU level, there were no changes to 2015/16 wheat exports of consumption. Production was however nudged higher, up from the 158 MMT estimated last month to 158.5 MMT. That helps take ending stocks this season up the best part of 1 MMT to 20.2 MMT - the most since 2005/06.
Russia's export potential this season was trimmed from 23.5 MMT to 23.0 MMT. This was due to "due to the recent slow trade to major markets," they said.
