Technical sales led to price losses at the Chicago wheat quotes last Friday. The USDA surprised many market participants on Thursday with an unexpectedly high forecast for US wheat production in 2018/19. Concerns over drought-prone wheat stocks in the US Plains seem to have faded into the background. Institutional investors sold 6,000 lots of CBoT SRW wheat on Friday. At the moment, the eCBoT is trading with further losses. With comparatively weak sales, the wheat futures on Euronext in Paris followed the negative overseas guidance and closed with moderate losses for the dates of the 2018 harvest. European traders point to some supporting facts in the USDA report. For Russia, the ministry expects a sharp decline in wheat production in 2018/19. Smaller final stocks in the EU are also expected. World ending stocks, adjusted for China's rising final stock, also show a significant decline. FranceAgriMer announced Friday that the state of French winter wheat stocks has stabilized over the past week. As in the previous week, 78% of the holdings received the top rating "good to excellent".
