It’s a sea of red across grain futures markets this morning, apart from ICE canola futures, but don’t get excited it was a public holiday in Canada. Paris rapeseed futures were back €2.25 / tonne for the Feb 17 contract so there is every chance ICE canola will play catch up on Monday while the US has a day off.
A lot of last night’s trade is being put down to long weekend jitters but at the same time there are not a lot of bullish fundamentals out there either. Corn acres in the US are the third highest in 72 years and sitting in mud. US soybean stocks are up 39% year on year and a little higher than much of the trade anticipated. US wheat get’s bigger and bigger. Contract harvesters are reporting little to no damage from recent rain and huge crops right across Kansas.

The French are finally coming to terms with the wet spring and start to summer. France AgriMer reduced the amount of wheat rated good to excellent another 6 points on Friday, now at 65% and probably still a bit of a stretch. Winter barley rating also fell 5% to 62%, this has many a punter anticipating some upside in malt barley prices in the midterm.
The decline in French quality is not good news for their main buyer Algeria who recently announced they would need 500kt more wheat in 2016, and possibly up to 8mt.