Getreide News, 08/11/2023

At the beginning of this week, wheat and corn were able to increase noticeably on the Paris stock exchange. From Wednesday onwards, however, prices began to fall, with corn in particular largely stagnating. On a weekly basis, however, a plus remains in the books. The Wheat-August date closed yesterday evening with a settlement of 237.50 euros/t, last Friday it was 235.25 euros/t. Corn mostly gave way, here is a slight minus on a weekly basis. While in the previous week the attacks on Ukrainian port cities were still the focus of trade and drove prices north, no more attacks on Ukraine's export infrastructure were reported this week. As a result, concerns about a global bottleneck in the grain supply are being pushed into the background and market participants are concentrating more and more on the other fundamental data. For example, health ratings for US spring wheat have improved significantly as of the start of the new week, and the winter wheat harvest in the United States is also on target. In Europe, the combine harvesters are still running.In large parts of Germany and northern France in particular, many areas have not yet been harvested because the very heavy rainfall at the end of July and the beginning of August significantly interrupted harvesting work. In southern Germany in particular, many market participants expect that the remaining wheat stocks will not meet the quality requirements for milling wheat and that there will therefore be a good supply of feed wheat. In many places, the feed mills and concentrated feed mixers are correspondingly cautious in their current demand for feed grain. However, land dealers and livestock dealers are currently active as buyers. Warmer and summery temperatures are reported for the coming week, so that the wheat harvest could also be in the direction of target degrees, provided that the fields are dry enough and passable by then. For France, the statistical service Agreste increased its forecast for the soft wheat harvest to 35 million tons this week. This means that the previous year's level would be exceeded by 5.6 percent. In the case of grain maize, too, a higher harvest volume is assumed despite the smaller acreage. The French authorities are expecting a harvest result of 10.9 milliontons and thus 2.2 percent more volume than in the previous year. The corn stocks in Europe benefited from the rain showers. These are currently in good shape, even if it is expected regionally that the heat-related damage from May and June will not be compensated for. The EU Commission last revised the European harvest downwards in its estimate at the end of June. By contrast, the forecast for Brazil has increased. The agricultural authority Conab now estimates this year's harvest at 130 million tons and has thus increased its own estimate by 2.2 percent. This Friday, the US Department of Agriculture will publish the August WADE. Market participants are already positioning themselves for this and expect a cut in US corn production, although the weather conditions have improved and the condition assessments were raised by 2 percentage points on Monday. The harvests in Europe and the USA are likely to be decisive in the next few weeks, but the situation in Russia and the Ukraine will continue to be viewed with suspense. Well-informed circles have learned that Russian exporters are currently reluctant to make export offers because of the uncertain situation on the Black Sea.Jordan, Syria and Egypt are currently active in the world market with major tenders.