Thursday Gains for Wheat Market
The Dec wheat futures expired officially at the close with SRW at $5.94/bu. That is $1.34 ¼ below the Dec ’22 expiration, a 32 ¾ cent discount to the Dec HRW contract, and will leave a 21 ¾ cent gap to March as the new lead month. The other Chicago futures closed 7 ¾ to 10 cents higher for the day. KC HRW futures ended the day with 2 ¾ to 4 ½ cent gains. Minneapolis futures closed up by 3 ¾ to 4 cents.
The weekly Export Sales report had 1.49 MMT of wheat bookings for the week that ended 12/7. That included 1.12 MMT already announced, and ended up in the middle of the expected range. Commitments are now ahead of last year’s pace, from trailing by 4.4% last week to now exceeding by 3% as of 12/07 with 14.53 MMT on the books.
Japan is tendering for 102.5k MT of wheat from the U.S. and Canada. Pakistan is on the market for 110k MT of wheat via tender. Jordan issued an international tender for 120k MT of wheat. Reports show Tunisia booked 100k MT of soft wheat and 75k MT of durum via tender. Algeria also reportedly booked +900k MT via tender.
The French Agriculture Ministry reported that farmers planted ~5% less winter wheat this go around, with 4.5m HA. That is also ~5% under the 5-yr average.
Argus, a private analytics firm, projects the Ukrainian wheat crop at 20.2 MMT which would be a 9% decrease on the year – via a 7.5% loss in projected yields. Ukraine’s Ag Ministry reported the season’s grain export pace at 14.7 MMT, including 6.3 MMT of wheat. Last year saw nearly 20 MMT of grain shipments at this point, with 7.4 MMT of wheat.
Mar 24 CBOT Wheat closed at $6.15 3/4, up 10 1/2 cents,
May 24 CBOT Wheat closed at $6.25 3/4, up 9 1/4 cents,
Mar 24 KCBT Wheat closed at $6.36 1/2, up 4 1/2 cents,
Mar 24 MGEX Wheat closed at $7.17 1/4, up 3 3/4 cents,
On the date of publication, Alan Brugler did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
