Prices 20/3/17
Generally speaking US and European grain futures were pretty quiet last night with two sided trade dominating the US session. The weaker USD prevented any further downside in grains while large world stocks of wheat prevented any upside in wheat.
One interesting thing to come out of the US session was a big increase in interest in $6.00 wheat calls for July.
This is interesting because the call is well out of the money so is cheap but would also need a decent rally in US wheat prices to be worth playing with.
With around 24% of the US wheat crop now in drought type conditions and very variable temperatures becoming a feature of the spring thaw period in the US the weather map there is one to watch for the next few weeks.
Someone, somewhere is due for a major failure.
Durum values in central Saskatchewan are indicated at C$267 / tonne, with costs to FOB approximately C$115 / tonne that would make Canadian 1CWAD sitting on a boat at Canada ready to chug off to the Mediterranean worth about US$297 / tonne. Ocean freight is about US$52, so US$349 delivered. US durum to the same location would work out around US$342. These are roughly comparable to $375 – 80 / tonne NTP Newcastle Australia.