At Chicago wheat appeared to suffer from some technical selling after the lead up to last week’s USDA report saw the market now over bought. The USDA report held no significant surprises for wheat and as such the punters are conducting business as usual. Supportive news came from healthier than expected weekly US export inspections. At 473kt it was better than many had expected to see.

Russian wheat exports for January are back a little. At 1.9mt it’s the worst month since June last year. With the US / Ruble now sitting at 61c it will continue to hamper export sales but should see Black Sea values climb. Dry weather across much of the Volga Valley is also supporting local values in Russia but over the last 7 days this area has seen a little rainfall so conditions are not as critical as what they may have been if the dry had persisted.

There was continued chatter around the US / China trade deal. There was even unconfirmed reports that China had been looking for wheat offers out of the Pacific North West of the USA. The general sentiment now appears to be one of wait and see. The amount of rhetoric and spin around this US / China debacle from the onset has many wondering if the deal will simply result in nothing more than a return to trading as per the same as what the US was already doing prior to the tariff war. China have already stated that US product needs to be price competitive to gain access to their market. With Russia building a direct rail link to China one wonders how the US can be.