Futures settlements were mostly lower by less than 1 per cent on Friday.
- Chicago wheat December contract down 3.75 cents per bushel to 484.25c;
- Kansas wheat December contract down 2c to 407.5c;
- Minneapolis wheat December contract up 4c to 524.25c;
- MATIF wheat December contract unchanged at €171.25;
- Corn December contract down 2c to 370.75c;
- Soybeans November contract down 10.25c to 882.75c;
- Winnipeg canola November contract down C$3.50 to $447.40;
- MATIF rapeseed November contract up €0.25 to €387.25;
- Brent crude December contract down $0.13 per barrel to $63.20;
- Dow Jones index down 159.73 points to 26935.07 points;
- AUD weakened to US$0.6769;
- CAD weakened to $1.3273;
- EUR weakened to $1.1019;
Markets and trade
In the wheat pits Chicago settled down -3.75 usc/bu closing at 484.25usc/bu, Kansas was -2 usc/bu lower to settle at 407.5usc/bu, while Minni rallied 4 usc/bu to go out at 524.25usc/bu. Corn fell -2 usc/bu to go out at 370.75usc/bu while Beans were down -10.25 usc/bu to settle at 882.75usc/bu WCE Canola softened -3.5 CAD/mt closing at 447.4CAD/mt with Matif Canola finishing higher by 0.25 Eur/mt. In outside markets the Dow Jones fell -169.93 points, Crude was down -0.28 bbl the Aussie was -0.00309 lower to settle at 0.67643, the CAD rallied 0.0001 while the EUR fell -0.0027
US futures markets are heading into the end of the month with one eye on the end of Sep stocks report. Its been a strange year for wheat, especially for Hard Red Spring which is a tale of two halves. The beginning of harvest was fantastic and production prospects were getting bigger by the day. Then it started raining and didn’t stop. The initial reaction from the futures market was to sell off on ideas that the down graded quality was still deliverable and would weigh on the market. Then the downgrades got so severe that futures actually started to rally with many suggesting that the quality was so bad it would simply be feed wheat and would miss deliverable quality, even at the lower end. This coincides with the spec being historically short – not just for this time of the year, but they are as short as they have been. Complacent markets have a habit of finding the pain point. Its also worth pointing out that Saskatchewan and Alberta still have >70% of their harvest to complete – this will be an important harvest for Australia given recent imports into NSW – pricing will dictate if this program will continue and/or grow.
Australia
Locally the weather forecast brought some smiles to farmers’ faces in SA over the weekend with most of the Eyre Peninsula receiving upwards to 40mm which was much needed and saves a lot of the crop that was looking on a knife-edge a week ago. The rest of SA received 10-15mm. In WA the Esperance zone received up to 15mm. Showers continued to push through Vic and parts of SNSW getting light showers. Forecast for the upcoming week remains dry. Markets continued to hold ground late Friday with southern markets being up $8-10 week-on-week and prices in the north also firming. There’s a weaker AUD and a dry forecast; do we see markets strengthen again this week?
Source: Lachstock Consulting
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