With the USDA report due out tonight the US futures markets were in go slow mode with technical trade and positioning dominating the proceedings.
Fundamental support came from China buying 300kt of US soybeans, I’ll get excited about that when I see the export shipment. Soybeans were the driving force and managed to help ICE canola and Paris rapeseed futures close higher. Canadian canola values found fundamental support from lower than expected Canadian production in last week’s StatsCan report.

US weekly wheat export volume was low, around 313kt. Mexico and Asia continue to be the biggest destinations for US wheat at present. With hard red wheat being bid with a significant discount to soft red wheat it dominated the sales sheets again. White wheat sales were also healthy at 57kt. This takes US wheat exports up to about 13mt for the marketing year, so pretty much on track at present.
Across the Atlantic we see EU wheat exports up around 63% on last year’s efforts. This marketing year has seen 11.9mt of wheat go to non-EU destinations. France has picked up some good business into Africa.

Conditions in central Russia have improved recently putting the winter wheat in much better condition than that sown across the lower reaches of the Volga Valley. Conditions across eastern Ukraine are all but ideal while Romania remains a little dry but generally OK.