Wheat trading calms down again

At least the chaos that occurred in the market in September contracts disappeared. Long-term business is maintained at a price level of € 240 to € 250 per tonne.

On August 20, the prices for the September contract suddenly shot above € 270 per tonne. The ceiling turned out to be around € 273 and it lasted for a few days. This level was also traded at the beginning of last week. After that, the market dropped towards € 250 per tonne and the number of cases completed decreased. This brought trading in September contracts back into line with business in the longer term. The December contract closed the week at € 246.75, which was fractionally higher than the week before.

Wheat production estimate lowered

In the past week, wheat price developments received further support from the IGC grain report. In the latest estimates of the IGC, especially the estimate of wheat production was lowered. This is due to smaller harvest expectations in Canada, Russia and the United States. And in Europe, Germany reported a disappointing crop coming from the country this year. This applies to both quantity and quality. Also in France there are concerns about the quality of the wheat as a result of the heavy rain this summer.

Less Russian wheat

And harvest expectations for Russian wheat have also fallen sharply in recent weeks. This also has consequences for the export possibilities from this country. The Russian agricultural consultancy SovEcon has further lowered its forecast for the export of Russian wheat by 3.2 to 33.9 million tons. That is the smallest amount since 2016-17.

The prices of grain maize have increased again last week; with 2.5% in Paris and 5.1% in Chicago. This reversed the decline in the previous week. Soybeans also saw a resurgence in prices; versus the previous week +3.7% on the futures market in Chicago.