UK trades/markets: Pants
With LIFFE wheat running around £4 lower this morning its all gone a bit flat.
On the wheatfeed front spot pellets have been trading recently in the region £118/125 depending on location, with traders juggling their positions around on lack of production at Icklingham.
The word on the streets this morning however is that Icklingham is back on stream for next week, so this could exert some pressure on the nearby market.
Jun/Sep ex South East locations traded at £115. Yesterday's buyers turning into sellers!
Pants!
Chicago closing comments
Guess what? Nothing really very new. The Chicago market briefly touched limit down (-70c) on soybeans, before rebounding a bit to close down 43c nearby, with wheat down 10-18c and corn up around 5-6c.
Despite a volatile session there wasn't an awful lot of fresh news in the market.
Crude oil was lower, dragging soy down with it. Wet weather & planting concerns added to soybeans woes & ultimately supported corn. Wheat was in no mans land but the prospect of much larger crops on the horizon in the northern hemisphere was again enough to send futures lower.
None of that is particularly fresh yet it was still sufficient to cause some pretty major moves. I wonder what will happen when we do get some fresh market news!
Chicago closing comments - why do we bother?
Nothing much fresh really. Turn the clock back to Friday night and we are pretty much back where we started. With the exception of wheat, Chicago futures contracts effectively erased Monday's losses Tuesday.
Wheat was "dragged kicking & screaming" into positive territory by the soy complex & corn, however only ended with modest gains compared to Monday's sharp declines.
There wasn't really that much different fundamental fresh news across the entire sector. There was some new export business announced, but nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary really.
The USDA planting progress report released after the close Monday provided a few disappointments, but again nothing major.
Perhaps the main factor behind all this was that on Monday the large spec trader was a little wary of what might come out of Tuesday's CFTC forum & liquidated some longs, sending the market crashing lower. When the forum turned out to be a mutal patting on the back exercise they piled back in, sending the market storming higher. Not that they are responsible for dictating the market direction or anything, that's all external uncontrollable forces that are required to maintain liquidity remember.
The huge fat cats that control the rules governing these markets probably don't even know the huge fat cat hedge fund managers that are involved. Honest.
