The Aussie dollar is back over 77c this morning. The AUD is stronger against most of the majors including the Yuan and Indian Rupee. The strength was said to come from the sale of AUD$1.1billion in 11 year bonds. Some punters think the strength of the AUD maybe short lived though with talk of increasing US interest rates once again doing the rounds. One thing that has kept the AUD high for a few years now is the disparity between Australian and US interest rates.

On top of the big sale of wheat into Ethiopia, Egypt has also come back out in a big way this week picking up 360kt out of the Black Sea. This takes total Egyptian orders for the last 5 days up to 720kt and 4.6mt for the season. Prices were up around US$1.00 to US$2.00 per tonne on the earlier tender.

There is a little talk in the US market that the warm weather in the south could bring winter wheat out of dormancy thus exposing it to cold conditions should they arrive. A similar scenario is unfolding across parts of southern Russia and the Ukraine. In the case of the later there are also fields that have had ice on them now for a week, this is expected to create some damage but as to how much damage we will need to wait until the spring to determine.