Cereals News, 17.01.2025

After prices were in the green at the beginning of the week due to poor harvest forecasts, they are now falling into the red at the end of the week. As a result, wheat prices are at 537.40 US cents/bushel (191.73 €/t) on the CBot for the March contract. On Euronext, the March contract also fell to 226.00 euros/tonne. A loss of 2.25 euros/tonne. Estimates by the French agri. This week, estimates by the French agricultural consultancy Strategie Grains showed higher EU wheat production. In addition, the International Grains Council (IGC) also adjusted its forecasts for wheat stocks. At 513,424 tons of wheat, the export reports of US wheat sales were well above estimates. Nevertheless, they remained 27% behind sales compared to the same week last year. In the corn market, March prices also fell at the end of the week. on the CBoT by 4.20 US cents to 474.40 US cents/bushel. May contracts lost 5.00 US cents to close at 483.00 US cents, while December prices fell by 4.20 US cents to 452.60 US cents. In contrast to wheat, the new forecasts for maize were negative. The IGC reduced its estimate for global corn production by 6 million tons and lowered expected stocks by 4 million tons to 272 million tons. This would be 20 million tons below the previous year's level. In addition, the Rosario Grain Exchange revised its forecast for the Argentine corn harvest downwards to 48 million tons, after previously expecting 50 to 51 million tons. US export sales of corn in the week ending January 9 amounted to 1.024 million tons, above analysts' estimates of 0.5 to 1 million tons. These figures significantly exceeded the previous week, but were 18.1% below the result for the same week last year. Here, too, there was a slight short-term improvement without affecting the long-term downward trend, which revealed parallels with the wheat business.