EU Grains Rise Helped By Short-Covering In US Markets, Strong Dollar

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 07:54 | Categorized as

 21/03/16 -- EU grains closed pretty much higher across the entire board. Weakness in both sterling and euro values may have added some support.

At the finish, front month Mar 16 London wheat was up GBP0.90/tonne at GBP101.80/tonne, May 16 Paris wheat was up EUR1.25/tonne to EUR153.25/tonne, Jun 16 Paris corn was up EUR050/tonne to EUR155.00/tonne and May 16 Paris rapeseed rose EUR01.50/tonne to EUR359.50/tonne.

There's certainly a feeling that those that have carried old crop this long without capitulating, will we be determined to see things through to the bitter end now. Last week's strong UK wheat export numbers mat be helping them to stay convinced that they are dosing the right thing.

Ukraine's exports via seaports fell to 319.3 TMT last wee! down from 531.9 MMT the previous week. Wheat was down to 123.6 MMT and corn 195.7 MT of that total.

The Russian Ag Min said that they'd exported 26.7 MMT of grains so far this season, a 4.3%  rise versus a year ago. That includes 19.6 MMT of wheat, 3.1 MMT of corn and 3.7 MMT of barley.

As crop monitoring services call off the watchdogs over EU crop conditions, there are heightened worries in the US it would seem.

"Hedge funds threw in the towel on short positions in agricultural commodities at one of the fastest paces on record for the week through to Tuesday night, many cases realising losses – although ironically raising questions about market strength to come, said Agrimoney.
"Managed money, a proxy for speculators, turned from a net short position in the main US-traded ags of 213,000 contracts - the second largest in history – to a net long of some 34,000 lots in week to last Tuesday, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulator," they said.