- Wheat markets have been active over the weekend with Egypt’s GASC stepping into the area once again picking up 180,000 mt of Russian and Romanian origin grain for shipment in the first ten days of August. Following a sim liar pattern to last year Romania secured two of the three cargoes with Russia picking up the third, prices reflecting around $4.00/mt more than the last purchase on 12 June. French and US offers were significantly more expensive and were consequently bypassed. Other business over the weekend included Saudi Arabia securing 780,000 mt of hard and soft wheats for Sep/Nov shipment and Pakistan buying 55,000 mt from Black Sea origins. The GASC business looked aggressively priced, and the Saudi purchase more so by all accounts. As we have mentioned before, when the Black Sea sellers are open for business there is little others can do but get out of the way – never stand in front of a speeding train! Sellers appear (for now) to sell below replacement in anticipation of lower prices at harvest.
- Some post market digestion of Friday’s soybean meal rally has unearthed sizeable fund shorts in front month call options which required some frantic last minute buying and triggered the late uplift in prices, reputedly 9,000 contracts were traded in the last five minutes of CBOT trading hours! This lent support into grains which also moved higher late Friday.
- CBOT grains Monday have eased as has soybean meal although soybeans ended in positive territory. That said, old crop cash soybeans do not have the same strong upside strength as was seen last year on the back of exhausted supplies. Consumer cover in the US is reported to be well placed through July and August with farmers electing to sell corn rather than soybeans at present.