EU Wheat Closing Comments

EU wheat futures closed lower pressured primarily by rain in Argentina and a weaker dollar.

Hugely varied reports abound as to how much rain has fallen in Argentina over the las 48 hours of so, and to exactly how beneficial these rains will be.

My information, for what it is worth, is that rains have been quite significant but that substantial crop losses have already occurred.

Paris March milling wheat closed down EUR2.25/tonne, whilst London May feed wheat was down GBP1.50 at GBP118/tonne.

Late weakness in the dollar, with the pound surging close to $1.45 added to the negative tone.

Various tenders this week may encourage market participants, with Egypt, Iraq and Pakistan all in the market for wheat, some of which may be EU origin.

Black Sea grain seems to be less competitive for once, and the US may be Europe's main competitor.

At the end of the day however, with current pricing structure where it is, there isn't a lot of risk in farmers carrying old crop into new crop. With Nov '09 UK futures running at a GBP4/tonne over July and Paris at a EUR6 premium over August why sell unless you have to?